Jump: An Enlightenment Sequel
by Kate Christie
Summary: "Apparently there was really only so much of the Castle-Rogers family Kate could take on any given holiday." A Thanksgiving chapter of my sequel to "Enlightenment."
1. Chapter 1

**Jump**

**Prologue: This is a sequel to my earlier Season Four story, "Enlightenment," which picks up 6 months after that one left off. Search FFN for my name or the title and give it a read if you haven't yet, with or without the M-rated "Enlightenment Extra" chapters. This will make much more sense that way. This is not a post-finale fic, in case you might be looking for something different.**

**And hey, I love feedback. Any feedback. It makes me write faster. I'm in this for the summer, if you'll come along for the ride. Next chapter includes Halloween Caskettness. : )**

"Castle! Get down!"

Three bullets ricocheted off an I-beam a few feet to Kate's left.

She had dived behind some sort of forklift when the first shot had rung out. She twisted around to check on her team's positions when she landed. Castle had been too far behind her to make it to her hiding spot, but he didn't seem to realize that as he tried to dash after her.

Thankfully, the rest of her team was right behind him. Esposito's hand shot forward and grabbed the back of his vest, and Castle disappeared behind a crate. She could just hear their whispered argument from her cover.

"Hey! She's up there by herself!"

"Yeah, and unlike you, Castle, she's a cop who knows better than to turn herself into target practice for a trigger-happy shooter in a chemical warehouse."

Kate scanned the room, trying to spot their guy. This was not the best locale for a shootout. The warehouse was full of nasty combustibles—chemicals, fertilizer, drums of industrial grade ethanol. She chanced revealing her position to try to bait the gunman.

"Come on, Mason, you don't want to light this place up. You'd go up with it!"

She was hoping he'd answer so she could track his voice, but no such luck. He might be psychotic, but he was smarter than your average Manhattan murder suspect. He knew exactly what was in this building, being one of the chemists from the company that stocked it.

She just hoped he didn't have his own death wish.

"Eleven-o'clock." Espo's whisper carried just far enough for her to pick up on it.

She shifted to sneak a peek over the chasis of the forklift.

A shot sparked off the metal cage behind the seat, dangerously close to the fuel tank and her forehead.

But the angle of the shot helped her spot him, with just the edge of his jacket peeking out from behind a large drum. No chance she was shooting at him with the unmistakable red stamp "DANGER - FLAMMABLE" looking back at her. She heard the unmistakable click of a magazine snapping into place as Mason reloaded.

In that instant, she realized she also had to move. For all she knew, his next shot would be at the gas tank on the lift, trying to get rid of one pursuer in hopes of escaping in the confusion of the blast.

She had a clear space behind her and to the right-about 15 feet to the nearest stack of crates. She steeled herself and sprang out from her cover, just as all hell broke loose.

She concentrated on her dive and roll as Mason's next shot went off. The bullet must have hit home, because by the time she hit the ground, the blast from the exploding tank had deafened her ears. She felt a wave of heat wash over her, but her momentum had carried her far enough behind the wooden crates that she missed the brunt of the fireball.

Her ears still weren't working properly, but she crouched and peered out to try to spot Mason.

She saw Esposito sprinting in pursuit, with Ryan right behind, and decided to circle around to head him off at the back door. She didn't see Castle, but maybe for once he had listened and stayed down.

Ears ringing, lungs burning from the haze of smoke now wafting through the warehouse, she dodged containers and made her way to the back wall. She turned from behind a row of cylinders and faced off with Mason, who had just rounded the far end of the same row and was now running straight at her. His goal was the exit, along the wall roughly halfway between them. Espo and then Ryan came into view only a half-second behind their suspect. None of them could take a shot considering their break-neck speed.

She stood her ground and pointed her weapon at Mason, who hadn't slowed in the least.

"Stop right there or I will shoot."

She hoped he wouldn't call her bluff. She couldn't take a shot directly at him with her boys directly behind. But when he didn't even hesitate in his race for the door, didn't slow his speed, she had to make a call. He was only a few yard from the door now.

She shifted her aim and shot the doorknob.

The noise and the spark of metal threw Mason off just enough that Esposito could get an arm around his waist and tackle him. As his torso hit the concrete, his gun discharged. Sounds were registering better now, and she heard the bullet whiz by her before lodging in the wall behind. Her eyes flicked along its path and found Castle, standing just behind the closest drum, watching her with hollow eyes and a blank expression. She locked eyes with him, not able to shake the haunted look he was giving her.

She heard Esposito cuffing their gunman, and Ryan reading him his rights, but her eyes couldn't let go of the pale, smoke-smudged face of the man she loved.

"Castle, are you okay? We need to get out of here."

He seemed to snap out of his daze at her words, blinking hard and pressing his lips tight together.

Sirens were nearing—Ryan had called for backup as soon as they figured out Mason was armed.

Rick still hadn't moved, so she stepped close and grabbed him by the hand, pulling him along toward the door that Espo and Ryan had just dragged their suspect out.

When they hit the cool, fresh air, Kate sucked in a few breaths, still jogging away from the warehouse, not entirely sure what would constitute a safe distance considering its contents.

She hadn't relinquished her hold on Castle's hand, and as they reached the edge of the parking lot and rounded the concrete wall at the perimeter, he tugged her back and grabbed her in a bear hug. His grip was fierce, and he didn't seem to care that Ryan and Esposito were a few feet away, handing their suspect off to the first uniforms to arrive on the scene.

He tucked his lips in against her hair.

"God, Kate, why didn't you answer me? I thought you were... I couldn't find you after the explosion..."

He loosened his grip ever so slightly and found her eyes. His still had that look of abject fear, now tempered slightly by something like anger.

"I didn't hear you. The explosion was loud-my ears are still ringing. I'm sorry, Rick, I didn't mean to scare you. I got away from the forklift just before it went up."

He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, then gripped her hands and pulled them up to his chest. His voice still sounded desperate, spooked.

"So you're not hurt? You're okay?"

"I might have a bruise tomorrow from diving onto concrete, but I'm good, Rick, really."

Since they'd been together, they always took a moment, even at crime scenes, when one of them had a scare, but he hadn't been this worked up since she'd been living with him.

Finally, his eyes began to clear, as though finding her whole and breathing was beginning to sink in past the panic. He pulled her in for another tight hug, though, mumbling something she couldn't quite make out against her neck. She thought she caught the words "why" and "waiting," but he followed it up with a very clear: "I love you," directly against her ear, so she figured whatever he said first must not have been meant for her to hear.

Despite all of her prior fears and reservations, she had come to understand over the past six months that sometimes he needed words from her. And frankly, she had begun to appreciate the power of those words, both from his lips and from hers. She granted the most powerful of them now, as she squeezed him tight against her.

"I love you, too. Now let me go do my job." She disengaged and took a step back. "You want to go home and change out of those smoky clothes?"

"Not unless you're coming with me." Though the frozen fear had melted slightly, he still wasn't himself. Not finding her in that debacle of a take-down had obviously affected him. She wished she had just heard his voice calling her so she could have answered.

"I have stuff at the precinct..."

As she spoke those few words, she saw the panic start to flare again and thought better of splitting up right at this moment.

"Let me go tell the boys we're going to change and then be right back. Mason can twitch in lock-up for a while." She patted his "Writer" vest.

Rick's small smile seemed genuine, then.

The fact that he wouldn't move his hand from its firm but gentle grip on her knee in the car on the way home should have set off warning bells. Despite that, she truthfully hadn't been expecting him to practically rip her clothes off as soon as they crossed the threshold of their bathroom door.

Oddly enough, it wasn't sexual. As he meticulously unfastened buttons, undid clasps, unzipped zippers, he was inspecting, assessing, making sure that she was, in fact, her whole self. And he did so with serious, searching eyes and probing fingers. He didn't seem to mind her utilitarian choice in lingerie from this morning. Some days she slipped back into her old habits from the days before Dora and her unending supply of lingerie had made her top drawer so much more fun.

She inhaled when he found the spot on her shoulder where she had landed on the warehouse floor. He had circled around behind her to find it, and he placed his lips against the point of her shoulder blade, brushing them feather-light to erase the hurt. It took him only a moment to find the matching spot on her hip, which he gave the same treatment, gripping her waist with warm fingers just above.

His assessment apparently complete, he turned her around and pulled her to him. The contrast of her naked skin against his clothes was stark, even the soft fabric of his shirt seeming coarse against her breasts, but she snuggled close, breathing in as her nose found the curve of his neck.

She hadn't required as much convincing as she once might have to clean up together in the giant shower, soaping each other up and washing away all the traces of their morning. It was much more efficient to do this together, after all, since they were in a hurry to get back and interrogate their suspect. But as skin met skin in the steam-filled, granite-walled cube, suddenly a brief detour seemed in order.

Something had Rick more worked up than he should have been. He hadn't had her out of his sight or his touch since they'd left the warehouse. She knew he had thought scary thoughts, but that couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes at the longest. Something had him clinging. But she wasn't about to deny him his coping mechanisms, especially when at the moment they involved worshiping her naked body in their shower.

He was alternating between slippery caresses with firm hands and lazy kisses with soft lips, all the while finding her eyes, looking for affirmation. When they were thoroughly clean, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her against the smooth granite wall, obviously with intent to continue worshiping in a more directed manner.

The spray had warmed the wall behind her and was now pouring over his back as he kissed along her collarbone, pulling a sigh from her lips and all thoughts of the case from her brain. She ran her palms over the taut muscles of his shoulders and decided to let him love her.

She had pulled out her blow dryer and was plugging it in as he re-entered the bathroom in boxers and an undershirt.

"Think the boys can handle questioning Mason?"

He reached for his toothbrush and opened the drawer for toothpaste.

"I'm guessing they already are."

She switched on the stream of hot air and finger-combed her hair. They hadn't been home for that long, considering all they had "accomplished," but by the time they made it back to the 12th, Ryan and Esposito would have gotten antsy and taken matters into their own hands.

He reached over and palmed her rear through her robe. Just one of the lovely side benefits of living with Richard Castle—being groped in the bathroom at random moments while primping. Something about her morning, or in this case mid-day, routine turned him on. And apparently that was true even when they had just had a steamy bout in the shower.

She raised her voice to be heard over the dryer, and smiled at his lustful reflection in the mirror. Only Rick could convey lust while brushing his teeth.

"Down, boy. We have to go back to work now."

He finished brushing and rinsed, then kissed her shoulder.

"I know. I'm leaving you alone and getting dressed now."

But he lingered, giving her a sweet, sort of awestruck-puppy-dog-besotted smile.

She shut off the dryer and set it on the counter, knowing he had something to say.

"Thank you for humoring me."

He stepped around behind her and peered over her shoulder.

"I'm sorry I scared you in the first place."

She leaned back against his chest, twined the fingers of one hand with his. He leaned in to rest his chin against her temple and she couldn't help tilting her head into his warmth. He spoke again, voice low and deep.

"Don't be sorry. Sometimes I just forget how quick… It's a dangerous job…"

He closed his eyes for a beat, took a breath in.

"Having you with me all the time makes me assume things that I shouldn't. I don't want to get complacent with us."

She turned to find his lips with her own and kissed them softly, then looked into his eyes, seeking out that fear and insecurity he was trying hard to hide.

"It is a dangerous job. But we're careful, and we have a great team, and we're going to come home together every night, just like we have been."

He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her against him. She could feel his urge to protect, defend, possess, in the strength of his arms and hands as they covered her.

She knew that the words she'd said were platitudes, at least to an extent. There was no way to know when one or both of them might not come home. But she had made her peace with the fact that coming home to him now was worth the fear that one of them might lose the other one day. She thought he had, as well.

"I love you."

He breathed the words into her hair, as though trying to infuse them into her.

She hugged him back, tightly.

"I love you, too."

"Let's go back to work, Detective."

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: kathrynchristie**


	2. Chapter 2

**Jump: A Very Caskett Halloween**

**A few song suggestions to get you in the mood, since it's May instead of October as you read this: "I put a spell on you" and "Bad moon rising," (CCR) "Superstition," (Stevie Wonder) "Center of the sun" and "Sleep," (Conjure One) and "Undun," The Guess Who.**

Kate dug into the back right corner of her top drawer. She knew it was in here somewhere. Why was it only when she was in an all-out sprint to get dressed that her lingerie chose to be insubordinate?

"Rick? Were you sneaking in my top drawer again?"

She called out through the closet door, still digging, hoping he would hear her from the bathroom where he was nearly finished tying his tie. She was still naked in their closet, looking for underwear. This was the downside to being the only one who could actually sign off on the paperwork from their early morning pop-and-drop. It was a welcome change from Wednesday's exploding chemical warehouse, though.

Rick stuck his head in through the open closet door.

"Now why would you think that?"

She turned to give him her best Beckett glare, which she was thoroughly proud she could do even while naked. Maybe that came from living in his loft with his lack of respect for personal space for half a year.

"You've been known to encroach on occasion."

He leaned casually against the doorjamb and raised both eyebrows, looking entirely too devious to be innocent. He seemed to have surfaced from the depths of his half-panicked funk since Wednesday. It might have had something to do with the frequent and thorough sexercise they'd had since then.

"Why Detective Beckett, I have no idea what you're talking about."

She put one hand on her hip and tipped her head to the side.

"I'd love to hear you explain how my purple thong ended up in my top desk drawer at the precinct without your intervention."

He narrowed his eyes.

"I already told you—that was the underwear fairy."

"Go tie your tie and let me get dressed."

He shifted his weight off the wall and raised his hands in surrender.

"You're the one who called me in here…"

"And now I'm banishing you."

He pointed both index fingers at her chest.

"You so cannot banish me from our closet. It's half mine."

"I can banish you from my half. And stop pointing at my breasts."

He fisted his hands and took a step backward.

"Fine. But hurry up, naked hot woman. We're going to be late."

He stuck out his lower lip in a pout and turned on his heel.

It was Friday night, and thankfully the team had the weekend off. Next Wednesday was Halloween, and since it fell on a weeknight, all the parties were the weekend before. Rick had asked a few weeks earlier if she wanted to host one, go to one, or just dress up for each other… privately.

She'd answered that any or all of the above would be fine with her. He'd listened, and of course gone slightly overboard. They were going to some big fancy shindig tonight, no costumes required. Tomorrow they were having people to the Old Haunt in full Halloween gear, costume contest and Monster Mash and all. He hadn't specified when they might have their private celebration, but she had something tucked away for that occasion when it arose.

Even before the debacle at the warehouse, she'd had a feeling about their date tonight. It was a funny, buzzing intuition that something was up. To his credit, Castle hadn't given anything away. Considering the man's inability to contain himself in the face of a surprise, maybe she was wrong.

She didn't think so, though. And whatever this Spidey Sense was, it only seemed to have escalated in the face of their traumatic week.

She finally found the black striped lace bra and matching underwear she had been searching for and slipped them on.

"How fancy is this thing, tonight?"

"Oh, not too fancy. Wear something comfy. And look hot."

She rolled her eyes in the direction of his voice. Yes, because all cocktail dresses were meant to be both "comfy" and "hot" simultaneously…

They were in the back of his town car, headed to some gallery opening for an artist she'd never heard of. He'd mentioned popsicle sticks and gumdrops. These things only got more and more bizarre.

But over time, she'd concluded that going out to boring society events was really a small price to pay for having Richard Castle as her significant other. And if they occasionally made Page 6, she didn't notice. She certainly hadn't been clipping the photos and keeping them in an accordion file on her side of the desk in the office.

Rick seemed on edge, fingers tapping restlessly on his knee, despite the fact that he had one arm flung casually around her shoulders.

They made a sharp turn, and she ended up shoved tightly against his side. As they straightened up again, he reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a small, polished, wooden jewelry box.

Her breath caught.

It looked suspiciously like a ring box.

Oh god. This was what she'd been sensing.

She felt her heart stutter, then pound against her ribs.

After all of his careful sidestepping, his obvious efforts not to spook her since she'd moved in…

He was… really… this was it?

He held the lustrous rosewood cube in his palm, offering it to her across their laps.

She couldn't help the incredulous outburst.

"Really? Seriously? You're doing this here? Right now?"

"I know you're going to make fun of me for acting sappy like Jenny was with that horrible tie. I accept that I'm ridiculous; I couldn't help it."

When she just continued to stare dumbly at him, he continued.

"It's the six-month anniversary of the weekend you moved in."

Her fingers were numb as she took the box and opened it, afraid, elated, awestruck.

The hinge creaked slightly, and damn it if she didn't shut her eyes for an instant.

She was having trouble taking a breath.

Enough was enough.

She opened her eyes and looked into the box.

It wasn't a ring.

A pair of simply-set diamond earrings were nestled in the blue velvet lining of the box. Square-ish stones held in place by wide, white metal prongs, probably platinum knowing Castle.

Her heart lurched to a halt as an unreasonable sense of disappointment washed over her.

She couldn't speak.

She should thank him, tell him no, say they were too extravagant.

But all she could think of was that they weren't a ring.

Where were these feelings coming from? She'd barely been his girlfriend, much less his house-mate. Why did she think half a year of a serious relationship constituted the foundation for a lifetime? Maybe because, if she was honest with herself, they had been in a relationship for more than four years.

She must have still had an expression of shock on her face, because Castle seemed to think he needed to explain himself.

"I know you don't want me to buy you expensive jewelry, but my jeweler called me a few weeks ago and told me he had a set of matching stones, and I had told him months ago to keep an eye out for sets. I just want you to have something special from me, and they really aren't too flashy, and your hair will hide them mostly if you have it down…."

How stupid she was. Of course he wasn't going to… do that… in the backseat of his town car, on their way to a Halloween party. But for just a second, she had thought….

She couldn't take her eyes off the stones sparkling in the little box, part of her brain still stuck in the moment of panic (excitement? joy?) when she had first seen the box in his hand. Apparently her silence had exhausted his patience. His voice sounded completely unsure when he spoke again.

"Kate?"

Time to snap out of this overly-dramatic situation you invented for yourself, Beckett. God, he and Martha must be rubbing off on her.

"They... they're beautiful."

She chanced a look over at his face, smiling at him shyly.

One corner of his mouth started to turn up, but he still sounded unsure of her reaction.

"Will you wear them? Or do you want me to take them back?"

She had begrudgingly come to terms with his desire to occasionally spoil her. It had taken months of minor arguments and a few big blow-ups to make him understand that if he was going to do so, then she wanted to use her money to spoil him, too. But living with him, sharing his space and her heart, all of that turned on their ability to compromise.

He still bought her ridiculous lingerie that she didn't need, thanks in part to his co-conspirator, Dora, and the Texan's never-ending source of nighties, her Ladies Boutique. And he did force her to take vacation for two weeks over the summer at his house (mansion) in the Hamptons. But he didn't try to force cars, or clothes, or jewelry, at least until now. That was one mental justification for why she had jumped to the biggest and most overblown conclusion about what piece of jewelry he might be giving her now.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, she found that she didn't want to fight him on these earrings. They were beautiful, and simple, and she would wear them. Time to let him off the hook.

"Of course I will, and no, you can't take them back."

She smiled as she started to remove them from their blue velvet cushion. He looked somewhat shocked, actually, at her adamant answer.

"What is this cut? I don't think I've ever seen it before."

She removed her silver hoops and put them in her clutch.

"It's called an Asscher. A very old cut—just recently became popular again. Some people call it 'square emerald,' but if you look down at them, I think they look like infinity mirrors."

They did. She had to admit, this man had good taste. Unique but understated setting, not too big or flashy. She put them on and turned to him, holding her hair back out of the way.

"What do you think?"

His eyes had gone soft, his expression cryptic, with lips pressed tightly together in a smile.

"That they're almost as beautiful as the woman wearing them."

She couldn't help the little flutter in her chest at his words, but she didn't have to let him in on it.

"Sap."

He put the empty box back in his coat pocket and pulled her against his side.

"Maybe, but that doesn't negate the truth of my statement."

She looked out the window for the first time since they'd left the loft and saw they were on a bridge.

"There's a gallery opening in Brooklyn?"

He nuzzled his nose against her ear.

"I may have misled you slightly regarding our destination for the evening."

She pulled away enough to turn and face him with what she hoped was an intimidating glare.

"Where are we going, Castle?"

Gleeful. Yes, that twinkle in his eyes looked absolutely gleeful.

"It's a surprise."

She rolled her eyes and let the full force of her sarcasm taint her words.

"You know how I just love surprises…"

"You're going to love this one. We're almost there."

They were exiting the bridge and veering left onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

"So no high society mingling?"

"Absolutely not."

"In that case, I guess whatever it is, it can't be that bad."

They exited in Greenpoint, and she looked at him with a raised eyebrow. The street they turned down was decidedly not in the best part of the neighborhood.

"Calm down, Detective. You'll see."

They turned down a block with public housing, and then rounded the corner past a boarded up, abandoned four-story structure overgrown with weeds. They continued to the corner where they pulled up in front of a neatly-maintained beige brick building. She saw a woman in a vintage corset and overskirt directing a couple inside.

"A haunted house?"

"Ah, but not just any haunted house. This is the Steampunk Haunted House. All very H. G. Wells and Sherlock Holmes with no blood and guts or gore. Think _Wild Wild West_ and _League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_ meet Victorian period costumes."

She smiled, truly impressed.

"Yeah, I know what Steampunk is. I heard about this haunted house last year. But they had it at a theater in Manhattan, I thought? This looks like-"

"The former outpatient wing of Greenpoint Hospital. It's a converted artspace now, though."

He actually bounced up and down, and then he shoulder-bumped her.

"I think you'll like it. Last year they did _Alice in Wonderland_, and this year it's the same theme but way longer."

As they exited the car, the costumed woman met them at the curb. She was in full gothic-style make-up.

Rick handed her two tickets.

"You're just in time, dearies. Right this way."

They entered and were transported immediately into a shadowy blend of Victorian past and steam-mechanized future. As part of a small group, they were led through the candle-lit space a few at a time by costumed characters from a very dark version of _Alice in Wonderland_.

She grabbed Rick's hand when the lights went out just as they rounded a cobwebby corner.

He stepped up close behind her as fog billowed out from the space before them, sinking some sort of large metal machine in haze. A woman pulled a large chain, turning a set of elaborate cogs that ran floor to ceiling. This operated a red velvet curtain, which opened to reveal Alice, being pulled through the looking glass.

They continued on through fractured fairytale scenes, depicting the antithesis of the Disney version of Wonderland.

The detail was astonishing, with characters outfitted with odd, mechanized goggles, magnifying glasses, and robotic prostheses. Strobe lights, creaking doors, metal scraping concrete, layers of fog and blasts of steam framed the plotline. They had to climb ladders, negotiate tight turns in complete darkness, and at one point she swore they were climbing out a window. All of it made her acutely grateful that she'd worn a loose, flowing, cocktail-length dress and only three-inch heels.

She was buzzingly spooked and completely beguiled by the whole experience, smiling like a teenager dragging her boyfriend through the fun house at a carnival.

The only iffy moment came when a large hatch door fell shut immediately in front of them, and a bone-shaking boom reverberated. Rick was right behind her, hands wrapping over her biceps and tugging her back into his chest just after the noise made her startle backward. Her mind jolted into panic briefly, and he whispered in her ear.

"We can leave if you want to."

She took a slow breath.

"No." She was resolute. She'd had her PTSD under control for months, and one little jump at a loud noise didn't mean a full-blown attack anymore. "I'm good."

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, barely able to make out his features in the darkness.

"This is awesome, really."

She kissed his cheek, or at least she meant for it to be his cheek, but it sort of turned out to be his lips, and then a couple behind them cleared their throats when the two of them started to get carried away.

She couldn't help it if the dark, sexy theme and the period costumes got her a little turned on. And making out was better than freaking out about loud noises. She was sort of hoping he wanted to have their private costume party after this, since hers sort of went along with the Victorian thing….

She wasn't sure how much time had lapsed while they were inside, but the car was waiting when they stepped back out into the real world, pitching a bit, off balance at the stark change back to a blank sidewalk.

He had her by the hand, pulling her toward the car, grinning like the kid she knew lived just under his ruggedly handsome exterior.

They fell into the backseat, giggling and gushing about all they had seen, goose bumps rising again at the thought of some of the images and sounds.

When they settled down, leaning into each other, fingers intertwined, she noticed they weren't headed back to the loft.

"Where to now, cruise director?"

"I have a little spooky dinner planned, if you're game."

"After that? You bet I'm game for spooky."

They pulled up a few minutes later in front of what looked like an old carriage house, and he opened his door as he questioned her.

"Have you ever been here before?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Neither have I, but it comes highly recommended."

"Who, Patterson?"

"No, Stephen."

Of course he would take Halloween restaurant advice from the premiere author of horror in American fiction.

"One if by land, two if by sea. It's supposed to have fabulous food, and it's haunted. By an ex-Vice President."

Kate rolled her eyes as she followed him out onto the curb.

"Which one?"

"Aaron Burr. And his daughter, too."

"Mmm hmm. I'll believe it when I see it, Castle."

He turned back toward her looking dismayed.

"I thought you said you were game for spooky?"

"Doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to believe in the ghosts of the Burr family haunting a restaurant in Sheridan Square."

As he opened the door for her and she stepped across the threshold, she had to admit, the place had atmosphere. The multitude of candle-filled chandeliers, the exposed brick and warm wood walls, the ornate fish eye mirrors, all segued perfectly from their steampunk experience into a romantic dinner.

Castle gave their name to the host, who delivered them to the one booth in the room, rounded and red, toward the back. She slid in first, and when she stopped scooting, she found Rick plastered against her side. He slid his arm around her waist and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, lingering to exhale against her ear.

"I like your earrings."

She shivered, and not from lingering vestiges of fright from the haunted house.

Oh, she was going to fight fire with fire. The best bedroom voice was coming out to play.

"Thank you. There's this really hot guy at work who gave them to me. He's got great… taste."

He pinched her hip and nibbled on the shell of her ear.

"And what can I get for you two beautiful people to drink this lovely evenin'? I'm Maeve, by the way, and I'll be takin' care of you for the rest of the night."

Rick pulled away to look at their red-headed, green-eyed, Irish-accented server while Kate blushed scarlet. This was going to be quite a dinner.

Somehow, they managed to eat their delicious dinner, including the Valhronna chocolate soufflé that Maeve suggested and then Rick insisted they split. They might have also polished off a bottle of bubbly, while she wasn't looking.

As they were preparing to leave, Kate tugged her hair out from her wrap.

"Where's your earring?"

Rick's eyes were squinting quizzically at her.

"What?"

She reached for both ears and found that her left one was bare. Disappointment swamped her. How had she lost one already? She thought she'd put them on securely. Rick had seen them on her ears when they sat down…

Maeve was collecting the signed check from their table and must have overheard Rick's question. She chirped at them in her lilting Irish cadence, totally unperturbed and with eyes rolling as she passed them and headed for the register.

"Oh, that's just Theodosia. She's one of our ghosts."

She winked at Kate.

"Check your purse. She usually leaves them somewhere you'll find them when you get home. Just likes bedeviling the prettiest gals."

Kate unsnapped her clutch and dug to one corner, then to the other, and found something tucked deep in the lining. She pulled her hand out to see, and there was the earring, perfectly intact with the back firmly screwed into place.

Castle was grinning ear-to-ear at her as she put the earring back on.

"No ghosts, huh?"

A/N: So the Steampunk Haunted House is real, and this year it's going to be in the old Greenpoint Hospital. One if by land, two if by sea is also real, located in Aaron Burr's former carriage house, and supposedly haunted by Burr and his daughter, who likes to remove ladies' earrings. See my Tumblr page for a photo of what Asscher cut diamonds look like.

Twitter: kate_christie_ Tumblr: kathrynchristie(dot)tumblr(dot)com


	3. Chapter 3

**Jump 3: Diamonds, and a Girl's Best Friend**

Kate saw Lanie from her table by the window at their recent favorite brunch spot in Soho, 508. Lanie waved and waded through the small crowd at the door, then unloaded her jacket and purse before sitting.

"Did you—"

The waiter interrupted Lanie's usual first question with its answer.

"Your coffees and mimosas, ladies."

"I knew I liked having brunch with you for a reason."

She held up the flute to toast Kate and then took a sip.

"Can I take your orders? Or do you need a few minutes?"

"I have been fantasizing about your eggs Benedict with lobster for a week. Salad on the side."

Thankfully Kate had had a few minutes to review the menu before her friend arrived.

"508 waffles with berries and mascarpone, with the truffle fries."

She'd run five miles that morning, she could afford a few carbs.

"Perfect. Be back with those shortly."

Kate turned to look out the window at the crowd as she swallowed the fresh orange juice and champagne, but whipped her head back around when Lanie spluttered.

The physician set down her drink and proceeded to go into a coughing fit.

"Are you okay?"

Lanie nodded and took a sip of her water, cleared her throat.

"Katherine Ann Beckett, when, exactly, did you become a walking advertisement for De Beer's?"

Lanie's still-watering eyes were shifting back and forth from one side of her face to the other.

Kate smiled self-consciously.

"He gave them to me last night. It's apparently the six-month anniversary of the week I moved in."

"And he not only remembered that, but commemorated the occasion with a pair of one-and-a-half carat, D, flawless Asscher sparklers basket set in platinum? Do you know what wedding anniversary is the "diamond" anniversary? Sixty years, Katherine. Yes, that's years, y-e-a-r-s."

Lanie always had a way of putting things in perspective for her.

"How can you tell all of that from across the table, anyway?"

"You may be the detective, but you don't have the monopoly on superior powers of observation. And besides, precious stones happen to be one of my hobbies."

Lanie took a swallow of her mimosa.

"I actually thought he was proposing."

And she choked again.

"Quit that!" she wheezed out between coughs.

She apparently gave up on water and swigged her cocktail to calm the coughing. She stuck out one index finger and circled it in Kate's direction.

"Now back up for a second. You thought he was proposing marriage to you? Last night?"

Kate looked at her friend, then down into her coffee cup.

"Ever since he thought... ever since the warehouse on Wednesday, I've been getting this nervous, serious, love-eyeballs-all-the-time sort of vibe from him." She shifted her glance out the window. "Kind of before that, too, but more for the past couple of days." Lanie was silent, obviously waiting for the details, so she elaborated.

"We were in the back seat of the car on the way to the Steampunk Haunted House last night and he pulled out this little wooden box—looked like a ring box. I sort of flipped out, but then it just turned out to be earrings." She tried to nonchalantly sip her coffee.

Lanie's eyebrows shot up despite Kate's casual tone.

"Just…? Do my ears deceive me, or do I hear a twinge of disappointment in your voice?"

"No, absolutely not." That was way too quick of an answer, she should know better. Kate's eyes shot up—Lanie wasn't buying it, her gaze retreated back out the window, lighting on a honking cab. She concentrated on making her voice sound steady, reasonable. Not defensive.

"There's no way we're ready for that. He wouldn't, anyway, not so soon."

"I don't know about that. What with Wednesday and all, thinking you'd gone up in flames might have a way of lighting a fire under his talented, millionaire tush."

Kate studiously focused on the traffic, switched back to her mimosa.

"I don't think so. He hasn't said a word about marrying me in months."

Oh, she really meant that to be her inside voice….

"Excuse me? At some point he said words about marriage and you did not tell me this tiny detail?"

It was somewhat comforting, this shrill and demanding side of her best friend. Made Kate realize that some things never change. Unfortunately. How to explain herself out of this…. Look her in the eye, appear unfazed, sound even and calm, diffuse the Parish bomb.

"Way back when we first started dating, he made a few off-hand comments and I sort of freaked out."

"Well, then, no wonder he hasn't said anything else. He's scared you're gonna say 'no'! No man with an ego the size of Rick Castle's is going to ask a woman to marry him if he thinks he's getting turned down flat."

Lanie waved her off with her mimosa.

"He knows I'm not going to turn him down flat."

Lanie's jaw dropped open at that.

"I mean… he knows I'm open to getting there eventually… maybe… someday… when we're both ready…"

"No-ho-ho you don't. No back-peddling with me. If you thought he was going to propose last night, then you had at least ten seconds of panic between when you saw the box and when you opened the box to decide what your answer was going to be."

Kate just kept her mouth shut, hoping that wasn't actually a question.

"What were you going to say to him?"

No such luck. Damn. Maybe she could evade…

"I don't know."

"Bull."

Or vehemently deny…

"I really don't know! It never got to that point!"

Lanie was having none of it. She put her empty glass down, leaned in and smiled sweetly. Kate knew better—this was the face of girl talk combat.

"Shut your eyes. Now picture that little box in your hand, Rick looking all nervous and adorable."

She rolled her eyes before she closed them. When Lanie got like this, it was always best to just go along.

"Now, don't think. He takes your hand and says 'Kate Beckett, will you marry me?' What do you say?"

Yes.

Her eyes shot open. Lanie was grinning at her from across the table. Kate was sure she hadn't said anything out loud. But God, she'd thought it so loudly inside her head. The little breathy exclamation just slipped out.

"Oh God."

And as if on cue, the waiter appeared with their brunch plates.

"That's what I thought, sweetie. Now stop the mental meltdown, accept it for what it is, and eat your waffles. You need about five more pounds on your skinny little butt before we start shopping for dresses."

Lanie reached across and patted her hand. Her left hand.

Their waiter cleared his throat.

"Can I get you anything else right now?"

"Oh, we definitely need another round." Lanie tapped the rim of Kate's half-full mimosa. "Drink up, future Mrs. Writer-Boy."

Kate spent most of the afternoon in a daze, what with the three mimosas and the massive psychological ramifications of her little visualization exercise with her best friend.

As she stood in their bedroom that evening, clad in her scarlet satin and black lace underwear and bra, costume laid out on the bed before her, she ran through it in her mind again.

Yes. She would have said yes.

Holy crap.

And Lanie thought he really might ask her.

Any minute now.

Holy crap.

She had been lulled into this sense of complacency about moving forward. He hadn't pushed. She was comfortable with where they were and what they were doing. Why did they have to change anything?

Because she wanted to make promises to this man.

The looming possibility of either of them breaking promises of forever, and the ominous knowledge that her job could break them even if she didn't mean to, had been keeping her in an emotional holding pattern.

Everything they had was wonderful, but at some point, when she wasn't paying attention, it had stopped being enough. She wanted what her parents had—a partnership in every sense of the word. And for the first time in her life, with this man, she thought she could have it.

So damn right, she would say yes.

And if he didn't ask, she would take matters into her own hands.

Yeah, this was right. This was her. Enough with the shrinking and the doubting and the freaking out.

She wanted this.

She wanted him.

Forever.

No hurry, but now at least she knew where she stood.

She turned to the mirror, herself and her lingerie.

The red and black did make for a dramatic contrast. Dora had some serious talent.

Kate had walked in to Dora's the week before and said she needed lingerie to go under her red sequined mini-dress. She was going as the Devil, with Castle as her angel, and she felt there had to be layers to her particular version of evil.

Dora produced this set, with feathery black lace barely covering her breasts, red satin snaking around her back to the clasp, and a black satin ribbon, yes an actual ribbon, tying the tiny briefs at her right hip.

Never in her life would she have tried something like this on without it coming from the sage and savvy hands of her lingerie guru and now-trusted advisor in matters of the heart and her boudoir wardrobe. And it really didn't help that Dora had refused to let her pay for the set.

"Fresh Start gave me very specific instructions the last time we chatted, Katie. You bought that darlin' little naughty surprise for your trip to the Hamptons, and he told me you'd agreed to let him get whatever the next ensemble happened to be…"

Dora had been right, of course. It had been one of their compromises. Damn it.

"You won't tell him—"

"Do I look like the kind of gal who would charge and tell? My lips are sealed. I do have one requirement in this little contract we have goin' here. You are shy. Goodness knows why with that glorious body of yours. But I would bet my Daddy's prize bird dog, Lulla, that you have almost, if not completely, chickened out at least three times with the very most inspiring items you've gotten from me."

Kate had stayed silent rather than admit to nearly having backed out four times. She took solace in the fact that she had actually worn every single item she'd purchased, even if a few had been in near-complete darkness.

"So my one condition is no chickening out! These-" she held up the red and black confection "-get seen, in enough light that he can actually tell what they look like and appreciate the time and tender lovin' care that went into choosing them. Think you can handle that?"

Why did she always feel like she should be answering with a "Yes, Ma'am," when Dora got like this?

"I promise to wear them so that he can actually see them."

"And he has to untie the bow."

"Dora!"

"Well, that's the whole point of having the bow!"

"Fine, yes, he will have the opportunity to untie the damn bow."

"Well okay then. You have yourself some devilish lingerie for your Halloween party."

Pushy, intrusive, completely endearing woman. Somehow she had Kate wrapped around her little red-lacquered finger.

Now she wondered if this was the lingerie she might get engaged in…

Oh this mental contortionism was doing her absolutely no good. Time to get dressed and meet Castle at the Old Haunt. He'd been there all afternoon helping set up decorations. She'd begged off, claiming she needed girl time with Lanie, which was partly true. She just left out the part about sitting on the couch staring at the wall for three hours contemplating her future as the third Mrs. Richard Castle. He wasn't really going to expect her to change her name, was he?

Enough! Dress. Shoes. Diamonds. Purse. Door.

Her sequined ruby dress fit her like a glove, wide straps plunging to a deep V neckline. She'd even found a satin devil's tail to attach to the back, and tiny, red, crystal-encrusted devil's horns on an elastic headband. Her last touches were the four-inch, red, peep-toe heels, which were sort of like Dorothy's ruby slippers on crack, and the understated red pitchfork that she could carry with her clutch.

The whole ensemble had been designed to drive Castle to distraction, and that was well before she had consciously thought he might be on the verge of proposing.

She slicked on one last coat of her matching red lipstick and headed for the car waiting downstairs.

When Kate swung the cobweb-covered door open, she thought it was creakier than usual. Music wafted through, reminding her of the theme song to Doctor Who.

The Old Haunt looked dark and spooky already, and most of the staff was still scurrying to put the finishing touches on the décor. They had been closed all afternoon to set up, and they were expecting a big crowd. Alexis and Martha would be there soon, probably each with an entourage, and Lanie and the rest from the Twelfth wouldn't be far behind. Castle had invited all of the staff from the bar, his usual poker buddies, and he'd even made a special call to her dad to invite him.

Oh, Castle had called her dad to invite him tonight. And all their friends and family would be here. Oh.

She tamped down the residual flutters in her chest. She was fine with this. If he proposed tonight, she was prepared. No butterflies.

She scanned the costumed wait staff and spotted Castle near the top of a twelve-foot ladder, attaching cobwebs to a ceiling corner. One of the bartenders, currently sporting a meat cleaver through the top of his head, was holding the ladder and directing.

She stayed near the door thinking he'd have a better vantage point to see her costume from that angle.

"Hey Castle, you look more like Hugh Heffner than Heavenly Host in those white silk pajamas."

He didn't turn to look at her, as he was adjusting a large wire spider over the cobwebs.

"Ah, but the beauty of letting you pick our theme was that then I got to pick the actual costume. And now, I get to wear my pajamas to our Halloween party!"

He was backing down the ladder cautiously. As he neared the bottom, he finally turned to look in her direction. The smile on his face froze; his eyes tracked all the way down and then all the way back up her form. And then he missed the second-to-last rung and fell on top of meat-cleaver boy. Even worse, he let out a decidedly girlie yip along the way.

"Hey boss, careful there. I think we've got the rest of this under control."

He steadied Rick on his feet and slapped him on the back, sending him lurching slightly in Kate's direction.

Castle seemed to get himself under control as they crossed the room to meet each other.

As he kissed her on the cheek, he laid his palm against her ribcage and squeezed slightly, whispering into her ear.

"You truly are evil, aren't you? I'm not sure I can stand next to you all night looking like that when all I have on are these white satin pajamas. Maybe we should just go home now…"

She whispered back, making sure he felt her warm breath against the shell of his ear.

"Oh, just wait 'til you see what's under this, Writer-Boy."

He shut his eyes as they rolled back in his head.

"Killing me, here, Beckett."

She patted his biceps. The satin PJs actually showed off his chest and arms pretty well.

"You'll die happy."

She couldn't keep a straight face witnessing his struggle to keep it together, and not stare at her chest.

He shook his head and took a breath through flared nostrils, then grabbed her hand and took off in the direction of the stairs.

"Didn't you say you had ridiculous wings to wear?"

"Mother got them for me. Don't ask her where she got them; I don't want to know."

"And a halo, too, right?" She snickered as she quirked a half-smile.

"Office. That's where the rest of my gear is. And I got something for you that I think will match your outfit."

They really were ridiculous wings. He wore a little harness contraption to keep the giant, feather-covered appendages in place, but she had to help him figure out how to put it on, and there was no way he was getting them off without some assistance. She had ideas about what that assistance might lead to…

He hadn't seemed in any hurry to get around to whatever it was he had bought for her. She was pushing the thought of it being a ring out of her head for now, because really, he was wearing giant wings and a halo on a headband.

But once he had checked the cant of his halo in the mirror on the wall behind his desk, he turned to her with nervous eyes.

"I have something for you. I don't know what you're going to say, but I don't want to put it off anymore. I just think the timing fits, and if I don't shut up now I'm just going to get myself in trouble."

He had been backing away from her as he spoke, hands out in a gesture of forestalling. At his last admission, he turned his back to her and opened the safe on the back wall.

His body was blocking her view of whatever it was he was pulling out, but he seemed to pause and his shoulders rose as he breathed in, then fell, before he turned back to face her.

She immediately recognized the shiny wood of the box in his hand.

This one was slightly bigger, but it had the same curves, the same luster.

And she had the same butterflies. Where had all her well-rehearsed calm gone?

He looked so serious as he paced out the distance between them, holding the little box between his hands.

"So there was actually another stone in the set that Ron called me about, and I didn't want him to split them up."

This time he didn't hand the box over to her. He opened it facing toward him, lid shielding its contents. His eyes flicked down to the box, seemed to approve of what he saw, then moved back up to hers.

He was standing close now; she could see the warm flush creeping up his neck, the slight tremble to his fingers as they began to turn the box. He just kept looking silently into her eyes, as though seeking an answer there.

She smiled, ignored the stinging threat of tears behind her eyes, and looked down.

It wasn't a ring.

It still wasn't a ring.

Her mind staggered. She had been so convinced. First Lanie, and then her own logic, and none of it was true.

It was a beautiful stone set as a single drop from a white metal chain.

And it wasn't a ring.

She didn't let the smile melt completely from her face. She kept the corners of her mouth up by sheer force of will.

"I know what you're going to say. It's too much. It's not, though. And you had the earrings on when you walked in, so I thought you could wear it tonight. Please don't be upset with me…."

He sounded so desperate to please her. His nerves and his uncertainty and the obvious undercurrent of love pouring out of him doused the surge of anger at herself for believing, again, that this was more than what it was.

She let her smile reach her eyes again.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

She turned her back to him and lifted up her hair, and heard him let out a breath.

His hands threaded the chain around her neck, and she felt the cool metal tickle her skin. Once he'd fastened the clasp, he placed his hands gently on her shoulders, squeezing lightly.

She dropped her hair over his hands and leaned back against his chest as she reached to press the stone between her fingers.

She felt his chin press just behind her ear.

"Thank you."

"What are you thanking me for? I'm the one who just got a gorgeous diamond necklace to match the gorgeous diamond earrings that my gorgeous boyfriend gave me yesterday."

"Thank you for letting me."

She turned in his arms and wound hers around his neck. She ruffled a few feathers trying to negotiate the wings, but eventually she laced her fingers together just above his satin collar. She looked up at him through her lashes; she could suddenly see the effect that all her insecurities about his money had had on him. She wanted to erase it, let him find that joy in his generosity again with her.

"I never meant to make you so nervous about giving me things. I mean, I don't like the idea of you spending all your money dressing me up and taking me out, but if it's something really meaningful-"

He ducked down to make her look at him fully.

"Like our sculpture..."

She nodded slightly and one corner of her lips turned up as she finished.

"Yeah, or like this, then don't be afraid."

He gave her a rueful smirk and ran his hands up and down her waist.

"I thought you might actually kill me with the art."

"But now I love it."

He pulled her against him and pressed a soft kiss against her smile.

"I just love you. Sometimes it bubbles over in the form of shopping."

She smiled and fought a chuckle.

"Just don't get carried away."

She nudged his nose with hers.

"Well, so this guy I know is selling his yacht..."

She pulled back and attempted a glare.

"Castle!"

"What, it's a small yacht, and guess what its name is?"

His eyebrows were halfway to his hairline, eyes a-twinkle.

"I don't think I want to know," she deadpanned.

"Lady Kate!"

She unlatched her hands from behind his head and pointed what she hoped was a menacing finger at him.

"Don't you dare..."

"But it's fate, Kate! See, it even rhymes!"

He was so cute when he turned into the seven-year-old version of himself.

"Enough, Mr. I-have-enough-money-to-buy-you-a-yacht-for-your-birthday..."

His eyes widened.

"Oh! I hadn't even thought of that! What great timing!"

She let out an exasperated "Oh!" and turned to stalk back upstairs.

She had nearly fallen asleep against his shoulder, legs draped over his lap, in the back seat of the car on the way home.

By the time they trudged into the loft, it was after two.

There had been a lot of dancing. They did "Thriller" at least twice. Might have been three times. She sort of lost count of everything after midnight.

At one point, she, Lanie, Alexis, Martha, Jenny, and Maddie had all been barefoot, up on a pool table, singing, "Who you gonna call?" with the guys chanting back from below, "Ghost Busters!"

In Castle's words, "Funnest Halloween party ever."

When the door was locked behind them, she headed straight to the kitchen to get water for them both, while Rick headed in to put his wings away. He'd taken them off around midnight, when Kate got fed up with his whining about the itching.

When she entered their bedroom, water glasses in hand, he was exiting the bathroom, halo and wings discarded in some unknown locale. There would be feathers to clean up tomorrow.

"Hey, Evil Temptress." He'd been calling her that all night. "I have an idea. Think you have a second wind in you?"

She set their glasses on his bedside table and contemplated her aching feet.

"I don't have to work tomorrow. Do I have to stay standing for this second wind?"

He was the one with the evil grin now.

"Horizontal would be ideal."

He closed the distance between them and ran his over her upper arms.

"What's your plan, Writer-Man?"

"Oh, I was thinking maybe we could have our private costume party…"

Suddenly she did have a second wind, a very warm second wind. Amazing how that gravelly voice could still do this to her.

"It may take me a minute to get changed. And no peeking."

She leaned in to give him a peck on the lips. A sort of sloppy, slightly tongue-infused peck on the lips.

"Take your time. I can get ready out here."

As she turned toward the closet, she wondered where, exactly, he was keeping his costume…

She took the ruby slippers off first. She loved her heels, but suddenly she understood why Judy Garland filmed in flats in that movie. She found a spot for them on her shoe rack, though she should probably box them until Christmas or Valentine's or some other red-wearing holiday.

It took some of her best yoga poses to manage the zipper on her dress. Somehow getting the thing down was so much harder than zipping it up. And the hook at the top proved to be its own problem, as she had apparently caught a sequin in when she'd fastened it. And of course there was the issue of having sweated in sequins for seven hours.

She refused to ask for Rick's help, though, since she was now going to save the red and black lingerie underneath her dress for another fun evening. It wasn't chickening out if she wore it later…

After hanging the dress, removing her headband devil horns, and working the kink out of her left shoulder from her contortionism, she opened her top drawer to find the satin bag she had pushed all the way to the back after her earlier "special" purchase from Dora.

But she stopped short as she rolled the drawer halfway out.

She couldn't believe it. What the hell was he doing now?

Another little wooden box was sitting right on top of her lingerie. This one was larger, maybe four inches square.

Her brain flashed to the two times in the past two days that she had been completely misled.

Not again.

She'd been understanding and thoughtful and willing to compromise and accept extravagant gifts both of those times, at least partly because of her befuddled emotions at the completely erroneous idea that she was being proposed to.

But now, now she was just getting irritated.

This was it.

Straw, meet overloaded camel.

She plucked the box from the pile of gauzy underwear and called out through the crack where the closet door hadn't completely shut behind her. She didn't want to go storming out there yelling. She could start with a door in between them.

"Castle? Listen, I know you're trying to be sweet, and I know I just told you that I was fine with presents if they were meaningful, but we're approaching ridiculous here."

She didn't get an answer, and she figured she should have this conversation face-to-face anyway. She headed toward the door, voice still raised to be heard through it.

"Let me guess, there were fifty more matching stones in that set Ron called you about, so you made me a tennis bracelet? I don't think I can go around wearing all of this."

She pushed the door open and stopped dead. Her mouth opened, but at first nothing came out. Finally she managed a whispered:

"Oh."

The bedroom was bathed in flickering shadows, lit only by dozens of candles spread over every surface.

Rick was turned away from her, still in his silk pajamas.

He was setting a champagne bucket on the dresser with two flutes.

Next to that was a vase full of red peonies.

Just like the ones he'd brought to her on their first real date.

Her heart stuttered, dipped low in her chest.

Rick wiped his hands on a towel as he turned to look at her where she was standing silhouetted in the light from their closet, dressed only in her red and black lingerie from under her costume.

His eyes were luminescent, blue and shining even in the candlelight, as he looked at her.

He crossed the room slowly, reached out for the box held between her now-trembling hands. His voice was low and soft as he took it from her.

"There was actually only one more stone in the set."

Her vision blurred. She wasn't crying. She wasn't.

Besides, maybe she was just reading into this again. She'd been fooled…

He dropped to one knee, and she let out a little sob, brought one hand up to cover her lips.

Oh, no, not fooling this time. Her breath caught, heart pounded against her ribs.

A single tear spilled, left a cool trail down her flaming cheek, fell to her chest.

She saw tears pooling in his eyes, too, as he began to speak again.

"I don't really care about the others, though, if you'll just promise me you'll wear this one every day for the rest of your life."

He opened the box, and there was her ring.

He pulled it from its velvet cushion and set the box aside, then reached for her left hand, gripped her fingertips, kissed her knuckles.

"Marry me, Kate."

He had tears streaming down now as he smiled up at her.

She could see that he knew. He wasn't afraid of her answer, just waiting patiently for it.

The lump in her throat wouldn't ease. She couldn't get words out. She wanted to tell him yes, of course, she loved him, and she would marry him, and stand up and put the ring on her finger already, but all she could manage was a nod and another hiccoughing little sob.

Apparently that was enough for him.

He stood and brushed his lips against hers.

It was barely a kiss, but the action was almost an afterthought, an accessory to the love that was radiating off him in warm waves.

He still held her hand in his, and now he looked down, released her fingers to slide on her ring. The metal had warmed as he held it in his fingers, and as he settled it into place on hers, it just felt… right.

Like it belonged there.

In that moment, there was no room inside her heart for doubt.

She reached for him, pulled his lips down to hers and poured all of her inarticulate emotion into a kiss.

This was no chaste meeting of mouths. She used every trick she knew—tongue stroking, teeth tugging, lips pressing. By the time they parted, they were wrapped around each other, chests heaving.

After a moment of leaning into each other, sharing air and drying tears, he finally spoke.

"Just to clarify, that was a 'Yes,' right?"

The adrenaline was making her giddy now, and a chirp of laughter escaped as she opened up with her biggest smile.

She finally found her voice.

"No Rick. That was an 'absolutely.'"

**A/N: I just want to know what you thought-if I did it justice at all. I think I'm going to cry now… **

**There will be an M-chapter to follow, posted under a different story title, "Jump Journal: Into the Deep," over the weekend. **

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: kathrynchristie**


	4. Chapter 4

**Jump 4**

**A/N: In case you missed it, there is an M-rated chapter up under "Jump Journal" to fit in before this one.**

The insistent ray of sunlight warming her cheek and flaming her eyelids must have been what nudged her out of unconsciousness.

It certainly wasn't the soundly-sleeping man stretched out naked on his stomach beside her. He seemed perfectly happy to doze despite the sunshine and her current use of his lower body as a leg rest.

She pulled her arms down from where they had been curled above her head and rolled her shoulders to get the kinks out.

"Geez, careful with that, Beckett, you could burn out someone's retina."

She saw the splayed out pattern of rainbows hitting Castle's cheek as the sunlight reflected through the diamond on her finger, and a warmth that had nothing to do with visible light suffused her skin.

A smile spread slowly across her lips. Her offending left hand slid out of the sunbeam and into the space between his shoulder blades, rubbing circles to soothe him into wakefulness.

Her future husband hummed in appreciation.

She was going to marry this man.

This wonderful, infuriating, horrible tease of a man.

She rose up on an elbow and turned to face him. As she extracted her leg from where it had been draped over the curve of his hip, she gave his thigh a little kick and elicited a confused "ooph."

"Castle, you strung me along for two days. I was too shocked last night to call you on it at first, and then we were… otherwise occupied, but you totally deserve to be punished for dangling all those damned wooden boxes at me all weekend."

Summoning what appeared to be a monumental effort, his eyelids rose and revealed slightly unfocused sapphire eyes.

"You know, most women probably wouldn't kick and then yell at their fiancés for giving them a string of little jewelry boxes full of diamonds immediately prior to proposing."

Her eyebrow began a slow but steady climb toward her hairline.

"And so you would prefer to marry 'most women?'"

He pushed up to prop his head on his hand and glare at her.

"Nine in the morning is way too early for you to start picking on me. I was just trying to heighten the suspense—you know, a little diversion so you wouldn't be expecting it."

Her free hand came up between them and she poked at his nicely-toned chest with her index finger. She should not be distracted by his naked, yumminess. She had a point. Really. Oh yes.

"Our courtship is not a plot device, Writer-Boy."

She wasn't sure she fully suppressed her smirk beneath the Beckett glare. He seemed to be immune this morning, anyway, as he brought his own index finger up to hers, in mid-poke, and touched their tips together.

"Actually, I could tell you were getting vibes or juju or doing your mind-reading thing last week, and I needed to throw you off a little. I couldn't very well deliver a boring proposal at the feet of the most epic woman in the universe."

His digits insinuated between hers and he squeezed them slightly, maybe testing how his favorite hand grip felt with the band in the way. She studied the image, how they fit, slender and long tucked in with wide and muscular.

It was such a beautiful ring. She was not this girlie, but she couldn't help the pang of unadulterated joy that welled up at the sight of his ring on her finger.

But focus, Beckett. You were supposed to be calling him out. Exuding annoyance. Deploying punishment.

"Think the compliments are going to soften me up?"

She had some really creative ideas all of a sudden about punishment.

"Kinda hoping so…"

Oh, who the hell was she kidding?

She used their intertwined hands to shove him back on the bed and pinned him to the mattress, evil grin hovering just out of reach of his lips.

"Or feel free to punish me. I can do that, too."

He rose up and met her lips fiercely, moaned into her mouth as their tongues tangled. She laid her free hand flat against his sternum and pushed him back down onto the bed, lost contact with his lips, moved hers to his neck.

"Think I'm gonna like this punishment."

She nipped at the skin below his ear.

Despite her attempts at distraction, he pulled back slightly and bubbled up with that enthusiasm only he could convey while being actively seduced.

"Oh, do we get to use the handcuffs again?"

"Talk less, kiss more, Castle."

# # #

An hour later, once they made it out of the shower and into actual clothes, they found Martha rummaging in the kitchen.

"Oh, good, you're both up. I was actually contemplating the possibility of cooking breakfast myself, but now I see I can—"

She stopped in mid-sentence when Kate sat on one of the counter stools and reached for a piece of fruit with her left hand.

She had been expecting an exclamation, maybe some clapping, even a little jig from the actress. Martha had done as much every time Kate walked in the door when she and Rick had first started dating.

Nothing had prepared her for the woman's actual reaction.

Martha's eyes stayed riveted to the ring for a silent beat, and then filled with tears.

She set the glass and bottle of orange juice down and pressed the fingers of one hand against her lips, then took a deep breath. She blinked hard, smiled behind her hand and started around the island.

Rick was standing stock still behind Kate's chair, seemingly as shocked as his fiancé at his mother's reaction.

She reached an arm around each of their shoulders and pulled them in tight, kissed Kate on the top of her head, then eased back and looked up at her son. One tear had escaped and was making its way down her un-painted cheek.

"You done good, kiddo."

A little watery, but overall, very Martha.

"Thank you, Mother."

She narrowed her eyes at her son.

"How you managed to trick such a brilliant, insightful, debonair beauty into marrying you I will never understand, but you did, and that's a cause for celebration in the Castle-Rogers clan!"

She turned back to Kate, her usual twinkle back in full force.

"Welcome to the family, dear. Now we need some champagne!"

Releasing them both, Martha stepped toward the wine room.

"Actually, Mother, we had some last night, and maybe we should save the next round to share with the rest of the family."

"Fine, fine. Shall we have them all for dinner?"

"That's a great idea. At least Alexis and Jim and Dora. Unless you want Lanie and the boys?"

Martha adjusted her path and aimed toward the fridge, where she retrieved orange juice, poured three glasses, passed them around. Rick turned to hand one to Kate.

"Maybe not tonight."

They did have phone calls to make. His daughter ought to be the first. She hoped Alexis wouldn't have any reservations.

She and Castle's daughter had been remarkably close since Kate had moved in, even after the redhead had moved out to her dorm at Columbia. She kept her internship a few evenings a week with Lanie, and Alexis had begun to look for Kate before she went home, just to say hello, maybe have a coffee. They had talked a lot about being only daughters going away to college.

But this was different. This was a permanent change in her dad's life, and Kate wasn't sure how the young woman would react to the idea of sharing her father on a forever scale. Her blessing was something Kate knew she needed, probably more so than Rick. She wasn't sure why the thought of telling her about all of this made her stomach flutter, but it did.

"We should call Alexis first."

Rick looked at her then, took her hand, stroked his thumb against the sensitive skin at her wrist. Nerves were flickering behind his eyes when he spoke.

"Not necessary." The way he pressed his lips together seemed apologetic, almost.

"She's the only one I told about any of it. I hope that's okay with you, that I told someone. She heard the plan—told me you probably wouldn't kill me, even if you wanted to at first."

Kate let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. His daughter not only knew, but she'd even helped him plot. There wasn't a reason to hold in the smile that bloomed with her relief.

"Good thing she was right," she kicked his shin lightly with her bare toes. "But I should probably call her and tell her I said 'yes,' and you can reassure her that you survived."

Martha piped up from behind her orange juice.

"Good thought, dear, she's probably been wringing her hands all night, thinking he'd screw it up somehow."

"Such faith you have in me, Mother."

"No, Martha, he did everything just right, for once."

"I was about to say how sweet that was of you to say. And then you corrected me."

She stood and reached up to kiss him lightly on the lips, smiling into his mouth.

"It was perfect."

"Okay, lovebirds, can we work on some perfect breakfast?"

# # #

Kate was picking up newspapers from their lazy morning, re-stacking magazines and stashing remotes in preparation for their guests, but the sound of the key in the door drew her attention.

When the flash of red hair appeared in the doorway, she headed straight for Kate and pulled her into a tight hug.

"I'm so happy for you."

Kate had become accustomed to hugs like these after several months of spending time with this family.

Her family, now. Wow. That was an idea to spend some time with in the near future.

But for the moment, she just squeezed right back.

"Thank you." She whispered into her ear, "And thank you for helping him."

Alexis drew back slightly, seemed surprised at Kate's gratitude.

"Of course I helped. He was a wreck, and he wanted it to be perfect." She was exuding indulgent-but-protective daughterly duty. "He had it all planned out, but he was too nervous to see it objectively anymore."

Wow, he hadn't seemed nervous last night. Maybe when he was giving her the earrings, or even the necklace, but when he actually proposed, he'd seemed confident.

"He didn't have anything to be nervous about."

"I tried to tell him that; I knew what your answer was going to be."

Really? How had Alexis known when even she hadn't been sure up until that very day? No reason to let the girl in on Kate's insecurities.

"And you were right."

Alexis stepped back to reach for Kate's left hand, tilting it to see the ring from different angles, then met Kate's eyes again with a teasing smile.

"He cried, didn't he?"

Kate smiled back.

"They were manly tears."

"Are you telling tales to my daughter, Detective?"

Rick came out of the office to kiss Alexis' cheek, then Kate's, before heading for the kitchen.

"I'm just telling the truth."

Kate's gaze followed him as he started assembling ingredients for dinner.

"Not sure how you could see me crying through all those tears of yours…"

She supposed it was only fair for him to rat her out, since she'd done it to him. She hoped her tone conveyed humor rather than humiliation.

"Touché."

Alexis' eyebrows rose in shock.

"You cried, Kate? I mean… I just wouldn't have pictured you as someone who would…"

"Show that much emotion?" She finished.

Alexis demurred, looking slightly embarrassed for having asked. Despite her lingering self-consciousness, Kate wanted her to know how much her dad's words and actions had meant.

"No, you're right. I'm not. But your dad took me by surprise. I wasn't prepared, and things kind of overflowed."

Something like relief flickered over the young woman's expression, followed rapidly by gratification.

"I'm glad he did it right."

# # #

Promptly at six, her father and Dora arrived with pecan pie, which Rick had snagged appreciatively as he shook Jim's hand. A look passed between the men that she would have to ask about later.

"I baked it; he just tried to sneak pecans." Dora jerked a thumb in Jim's direction as Martha took her coat.

Jim and Dora had been spending time together lately. That was all Kate could get out of her father, and Dora had said in her liltingly polite but evasive Texan, they occasionally had "a nice evenin' among friends."

Once Dora had offloaded her pie and set aside her handbag, she zeroed in on Kate and her left hand.

"Katie, where is ring? Show me, quick! I almost drove over here with my hair still in rollers, without a lick of make-up on the minute after you hung up the phone! But then I realized wouldn't have been able to make you my momma's Million Dollar Pecan Pie."

She reached for Kate's hand before she even gave her a hug, and for Dora, skipping a hug meant serious business.

"Oh, my Lord. That rock would give the Lone Star on our flag a run for its money! Billy Bob's could hang it over the dance floor instead of the disco saddle."

Releasing Kate's hand to wrap her in a hug, she tucked in close to whisper in her ear.

"I just knew he was it, Katie-girl."

Rick interrupted their moment as if he had just processed Dora's earlier exclamation.

"There's a bar with a disco saddle?"

Dora released her and turned to the rest of the group, slowly making their way toward the kitchen.

"Oh, now, don't you insult Billy Bob's by calling it a bar—no offense to your little place, Rick. But it's the world's largest Honky Tonk, and anyone who's anyone in country music has played there. I'm sure I've mentioned it before."

Her hand settled on Rick's biceps congenially.

"Oh, you have, but without the crucial detail of the disco saddle…"

"Well, now, why would they hang up a plain old disco ball in Billy Bob's? They have live bull riding!"

Alexis immediately squashed Rick's look of glee with her "don't even think about it" glare.

Jim caught up to Kate and hugged her from behind, held her back from following the group.

"You're happy." It wasn't a question. "I haven't seen you this happy since… I may not ever have seen you this happy." He released his hold on her and she turned to face him. "Katie, you're glowing with it."

"I am not." Though she looked at the floor, she couldn't hold back the smile.

"You are. And I'm glad. He had lunch with me over the summer, you know. Gave me the chance to be the intimidating father. Don't think I was, though. Mostly I just told him to hurry up and ask."

"Wait, he talked to you about this?"

She wasn't sure if she should feel completely insulted by the 1950's paternalism, or touched at the fact that he thought enough of her one remaining parent to want to bare his soul to him. After all, she'd done the same with Alexis when they had started dating.

"Well, not exactly about the specifics. He didn't even have the ring." He reached for her hand and held it up closer to have a look.

"And wow, what a ring, Katie. But he called and asked if I'd meet him and I read between the lines. I pinned him on it before he had a chance to do anything as archaic as ask my permission."

Of course not, this was Rick. He just wanted her dad to know where he was.

"Speaking of happy, how are you and Dora?"

He placed his hand at her elbow and walked her out to the kitchen just in time to hear the woman in question's declaration.

"Any time y'all want to see Texas, I'll give you the grand tour."

Wide-eyed delight met her when she looked at her future husband.

"When can we go, Kate?"

"I think we have some other things to plan before we plan a trip to Texas."

That sounded a little to parental for her own ears.

"Speakin' of plans, when exactly is the big day?"

"Soon."

"Not for a while."

They had spoken simultaneously, and now their eyes snapped together. Kate spoke after a slightly tense silence.

"We haven't really discussed it yet, actually."

"Obviously!" her father laughed.

"Y'all have plenty of time for that. Just tell me when you're comin' over for your wedding lingerie. I assume you'll be bringing Lanie and maybe a few other friends? And don't even think about it, Rick. No boys allowed."

The gentleman in question stuck out a very pouty lower lip while Alexis blushed furiously as she pulled the bread from the oven.

Kate wasn't sure what to say to Dora. It sounded like a good idea, wedding lingerie. People had whole bridal showers of lingerie. But she didn't think she was really the bridal shower type… But maybe Lanie, she'd been shopping with her at Dora's once. Maddie was a different story. She wasn't sure she could keep in control of a lingerie trip that put Maddie, Lanie and Dora in one room… As Dora was not one to take no for an answer, she settled for deferment.

"I'll let you know."

They truly stuffed themselves on chicken cacciatore and still managed to polish off most of Dora's pie. In the end, Dora, Jim and Martha forced Rick and Kate to sit and digest while they did dish duty. Alexis left right after pie, to get back to school to study for an early test.

As had become their routine, each took an end of the couch with their feet pressed against the other's hipbone on the opposite end. The kitchen crew was seemingly ignoring them, cutting up about political commentary from the Times that morning.

Kate and Rick's vastly different answers to the question of when they would be getting married were weighing on her. She had no problem committing to this man for the rest of her life, but she wasn't sure she was ready to walk down the aisle next weekend. Long engagements gave you time to get used to the idea of being married.

His hand gripped the arch of her foot and his thumb started working out knots and kinks. Her moan was thankfully quiet enough not to draw the attention of their parents.

"Oh, you're in trouble now. I'm not going to let you stop until we go to bed."

"Think we could get away with going to bed now?"

There was an amorous glint in his eye, but she knew he wasn't serious. Though she kind of wished they could…

"Nope. They're doing our dishes. We have to stay awake at least until they're done."

"Oh, I had no intention of going to sleep any time soon…"

"These walls are thick, but not that thick, Castle. No having sex while both of our parents are in the next room."

"Damn. Well, then why don't we talk about why you keep staring off into space."

The glare she gave him didn't seem to dissuade his line of questioning.

"It's not dreamy, I-just-got-engaged-to-the-love-of-my-life sort of staring, either, which is why I'm asking."

Fine, he had her. She couldn't escape physically without stopping the foot massage. He was good. Really good. And sneaky.

"Do you really want to get married right away?"

"Ah. I thought that might be it."

He grabbed her other foot with his other hand and double-teamed her insteps, then looked down seeming to concentrate on the pressing and swirling of his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was low, solemn.

"I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. When we start being married is much less important to me than that we continue being married."

He met her eyes, and she could see fathoms, leagues past this moment sitting on their couch.

"Forever."

And that word echoed in the silence between them. He meant it. He might have said it blithely to others before, but she knew him, knew what he'd become since he met her, and he was not saying this without weight and purpose and truth digging deep underneath it.

"However long you need to get used to that idea, I can wait. I'd rather not have gray hair at the wedding, but other than that…"

She'd been telling herself that her parents were her example. They had meant "forever" when they promised it to one another, but they never got the chance. He continued despite her mental wanderings.

"Now what would I prefer if you didn't care? I'd say as soon as we could get everyone we care about together in one place, let's go for it. We love each other. We know we can live with each other. We know how to fight and still forgive each other."

She used to think her parents' example had taught her she was better off not finding her one in seven billion, so she would never have to face the world alone if she then lost that kind of love. But with Rick, her psyche had shifted—subtly, so she'd hardly noticed, but a shift nonetheless. Now it didn't seem worthwhile to face the world without that kind of love in the first place.

Rick had grown silent, staring toward the kitchen with a tiny curl to the corner of his mouth, letting their parents' conversation filter through. Her father was laughing at something Dora had said. If Jim Beckett could learn to live in the moment, love again, what was she waiting for? Carpe diem.

"I think I could see us getting married sooner rather than later."

His eyes snapped back to hers, excitement and disbelief warring behind the bright blue. His hands stilled, moved to grip her ankles and pull her feet across into his lap, then began stroking up gently to sneak underneath the hem of her jeans. A wary optimism settled over his features, which was echoed in his tone.

"Sooner, meaning winter of 2014 instead of spring of 2015?"

She let the fear ease out of her, the anticipation flow in with her breath.

"How about next spring?"

"Really? Like 2013? Hey, how about January third! One-three-one-three!"

Oh, good grief. She walked right into this one. Well, she'd play along.

"Only if it's a Friday, Castle…"

He had his phone out of his pocket in a flash.

"Damn, Friday is the fourth. And the only Friday the thirteenth next year is in September. Nine-thirteen-thirteen doesn't have the same ring."

Silence had settled over the kitchen crew, and she snuck a glance back over her shoulder, only to find them all sidling inconspicuously over toward the living room, trying not to look like they were snooping.

"There's always three-one-one-three."

Her dad stepped up behind her and squeezed her shoulders.

So this had somehow turned into a family discussion.

"I like a palindrome—not bad, Jim. It's a Friday, though. There's a Saturday the thirteenth in April and July."

Dora leaned a hip on the back of the sofa near Rick's end and drawled her two cents.

"That seven would balance out your thirteens in July."

Another squeeze from her dad.

"Seven was your mom's lucky number, Katie."

She remembered that. Though she didn't believe in lucky numbers, her mom swore she had always won if she tried a case on the seventh of the month.

Martha circled and sat on the arm of a chair with a flourish.

"And I always thought of thirteen as mine…"

A family decision—her heart clenched a bit remembering what this felt like. Maybe it didn't have to stay a memory.

"I like it." Kate shocked herself with the ease of her declaration. "But we can't decide without Alexis."

Rick held up his phone, beaming unabashedly, to show her two texts.

"Daughter, how do you feel about the numbers 7/13/13?"

"Best. Wedding date. Ever."

A/N: Thanks for hanging in there between updates. I'm so grateful for the reviews and favorites and alerts. I'll keep going as long as y'all are interested!

Twitter: kate_christie_

Tumblr: KathrynChristie(dot)tumblr(dot)com


	5. Chapter 5

Jump 5

"What do you have for us, Lanie?"

The M. E. was crouched in the grass on the edge of the park, holding an evidence bag in one hand and examining something she held with a pair of tweezers in the other.

"A good reason why I won't be meeting you two for lunch today. Gonna have to take a rain check. Twenty-year-old Caucasian male, found by a dog-walker an hour ago. Best guess on C. O. D. is head trauma, but I won't know for sure until we're back at the morgue."

The body was sprawled on its back, head resting on the concrete curb of the sidewalk. The victim's shirt was partially unbuttoned, and four angry slash marks streaked through the opening. Esposito walked up and nodded at Castle, who stood peering over Kate and Lanie's shoulders.

"It's two days before Halloween. This guy is found dead in the park before dawn with slash marks across his chest. I know who the killer is."

Kate looked up at him from her crouch, amazed that he would pull out the authorial tone of pronouncement of guilt five minutes into the case.

"Who, Castle?"

She was curious, but she also didn't want to encourage him too much.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Apparently not to us mere mortals," she deadpanned.

"Oh, come on! Esposito? Where's Ryan when I need him?"

Holding up one hand, he arched his fingers into a claw, swiped at the air in front of him, expectant eyebrow raise in place.

When no revelations were forthcoming, he huffed.

"Freddy Krueger! This is classic _Nightmare on Elm Street_!"

Ouch. Was it possible to sprain one's eye muscles from rolling them too hard?

Lanie groaned non-commitally.

Esposito arched an eyebrow.

"Dude, Freddy's dead."

Before that debate really got going, she figured it was in her best interest to get out of the way. Lanie apparently felt the same.

"I've got all I need from here. When you're through spouting horror movie trailers, they'll load him up." Lanie stood and motioned toward the two techs standing by the white van parked on the street.

Kate stood as well and slipped off her latex gloves, which caught slightly on their way off. Her struggle drew Lanie's attention to her hand. Crap. This was not how they were supposed to tell everyone.

"Kathryn Anne Beckett, is there something you would like to share with the class?"

She finally got the glove off and all eyes were on her fourth finger, except of course Castle's, which were beaming giant spotlights of love at her.

"I was going to tell you at lunch, Lanie."

Her hand was unceremoniously grabbed and Kate had no choice but to follow it, lurching slightly off balance toward her friend.

"Very tasteful, Writer-Man. Kinda surprised how tasteful, actually. He must really love you to not put a 5-carat rock on your finger like I know he wanted to…"

"Thank you for acknowledging my restraint."

His chest puffed out a bit further, if that was possible.

Lanie still hadn't relinquished her bejeweled limb, seemed to be studying it in detail. When she did release Kate's hand, there was no sentimental hug or tears of girlfriendly congratulation. She just stepped up to Castle with a look that on anyone else might have been construed as awe, but Lanie would never look at Castle with…

"I need to get the name of your jeweler."

Kate was really going to hurt herself if she couldn't stop the reflexive ocular reaction to first her partner, and now her best friend.

And of course, Rick's eyebrow arched in triumph.

"Isn't he awesome? I think I have his card."

Rick dug into his back pocket for his wallet, but not before Kate could skirt past the two of them toward her car.

"While you girls are at it, why don't you trade contact information on manicurists."

Rick whipped his head around, slipped the card to Lanie, and trotted after Kate.

"Hey, that was uncalled-for."

Her sigh dripped exasperation.

"Besides, you love my manicurist."

She had her door open and was halfway inside.

"Precinct, Castle. Dead body. Murder. Case to solve. Any of this ringing a bell?"

# * # * # * #

When they exited the elevator in the bull pen, Esposito was already there, leaning over Ryan's desk and looking intently at his computer screen.

"Something to share, guys?"

Kate stood over Ryan's other shoulder and felt Castle hovering just behind.

Ryan turned to face her with a smug little grin as he answered.

"Sounds like maybe you two are the ones with something to share."

Esposito held out a fist toward her partner, who responded with their usual friendly bump.

She held out her own hand to show Ryan the ring. Despite her precinct-induced instinct toward machismo, she couldn't quite contain her own grin as she showed off the diamond. She was allowed to be a little girlie, especially considering that Ryan was more of a girl than she was most of the time.

"Finally making an honest man of him, Beckett?"

"I'm not sure even I have that power."

"Hey, now, be nice to me, I'm your fiancé now."

"Which just means that she can boss you around more, and you have to take it, or else she might kick you out and keep the rock."

Esposito always had her back.

"We got an ID on the vic. He's a college student at NYU, prints in the system from a DUI a few months ago. He's a Pike."

At her blank look, Ryan explained.

"Pi Kappa Alpha. It's a fraternity. One of the bigger ones at NYU, apparently."

"Well, then we have plenty of people to talk to. Get us a list, and find his roommate, too. Is family coming in?"

"On their way."

She crossed to the murder board to start the timeline, still surprised, absurdly she knew, over the fact that time, and work, and murders in New York, hadn't paused out of respect for her happiness. But then, when had the universe ever had respect for her happiness?

# * # * # * #

After sixty-two fraternity brothers, two roommates, and three girls all claiming to be dating their victim, none of whom seemed to have any idea why he would have been in the park that morning, Kate had finally called off her team. It was almost midnight by the time they slouched into the loft. She was surprised to see Martha's silhouette outlined against the glow of the city at the window nearest the piano.

Her gaze directed Castle's, and he broke the silence of the darkened room with a perplexed look.

"Mother, what has you up this late? Or, well, what has you up this late and not costumed and Halloweening?"

Martha didn't budge at first. When she did turn to face them, Kate noted that her perpetually-filled wine glass was conspicuously absent.

So was the genuineness behind the smile she offered them.

"Oh, just didn't feel up to another night of carousing quite so soon."

She knew Rick wouldn't buy that any more than she had. Something was off. Way off.

"Is everything okay, Martha?"

She may have been a great actress, but either she was slipping, or Kate had learned her tells: the stiffness of her shoulders, the careful steps as she crossed to lean a hip on the back of the couch, the tightness around her eyes.

Those haunted eyes looked up at Kate, who had closed in a bit to mirror her pose against the couch.

"I have no reason to think that it won't be."

Cryptic, not unlike her son when he was under stress and trying to hide it. He had circled around now, too, stood to face both of them with a crinkle in his brow that she now saw matched his mother's.

"Mother, what's going on?"

Martha shrugged her shoulders slightly, took a breath and faced him.

"It's nothing. Or at least at this point, there is no reason to think it's something. I got a call from my doctor today. Went for my physical last week, went for my… went for my mammogram. They saw something."

Kate chanced a glance at Rick. Pale. Stunned. Like he might sink right there before them. Well, then she'd better…

"Martha, what did they say?"

She scooted closer to the older woman, reached for her hand, carefully drew her attention away from Rick, hoping he would be able to get the shock under control.

"Oh, just that I needed more testing. Probably a biopsy."

"Could they tell you what they thought it was?"

"Calcifications. My doctor is lovely—she's about your age, I suppose; I've been seeing her since she finished her residency. She didn't sugar coat—said in a woman of my… mature standing, this could be absolutely nothing, but it could also be a very early stage of breast cancer. I believe her—trust her completely. So when she said make an appointment today, I called. I'm going to Sloan-Kettering on Friday morning."

She was sounding a bit more like herself now; the firm, positive, life-coach-with-a-plan tone of voice was back.

Rick, on the other hand, hadn't said a word.

"I want to ask you both to do something for me."

"Whatever you need." Kate squeezed her hand. Still no words from Rick.

"I don't want to say anything to Alexis about this—not until I know if there's something worth telling her."

"Oh, of course. We won't mention it, will we?"

She looked pointedly at her fiancé, willing him to snap out of his stupor. His mother, for once, really needed him.

"Of course, not a word."

Thank God he had come around.

"Mother, I'll go with you on Friday."

Good boy, Rick.

"No—absolutely not. You have your meeting with Black Pawn Friday morning, and I will not be responsible for the end of you writing career."

"I'll cancel—not a big deal."

"Richard, this is the meeting you have cancelled three times already. Didn't you say Gina told you if you didn't show up you would be 'drawn and quartered'?"

"Gina is melodramatic."

"True, but no. Go to your meeting. This will all turn out to be nothing. I'm sure of it."

It wasn't really her place; nothing between them had yet suggested it was, but something made her speak up despite that fact.

"I'll go with you, Martha."

She still had her by the hand, and when the older woman's eyes turned back to her, she felt a little squeeze, gave a firmer one back, saw a flicker of something… gratitude, maybe.

"I have so many sick days saved up, personnel has stopped giving them to me. And you should have someone there, especially if you have a biopsy."

She was ready for the gentle but vehement rebuff, but Martha surprised her, both with her words and their quiet tone.

"Thank you, Kate."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a perplexed look cross Rick's features.

"What time do we need to be there?"

The corners of Martha's lips tipped up as she tipped her head slightly to one side. Maybe she had thought Kate's offer was a platitude, meant to give comfort but not to be accepted.

"The appointment is at nine, but they suggested I get there early—paperwork, I think they said."

"Sure. Is it at the main hospital?"

She was silent for a beat, still looking intently at Kate, as if she still hadn't quite figured out what to make of her pragmatism, or her sincerity. Martha blinked and seemed to break out of her musings, voice just a bit shaky when she answered.

"It's just down a block. They have a breast center."

"It's a date, then."

Kate smiled, not quite sure how to reassure the usually-effusive woman of the earnestness of her offer. And then it hit her. She needed to speak in this family's language.

She straightened, stepped in, and wrapped her arms around the actress.

Though Martha's frame was a bit stiff at first, Kate persisted with her hug—tried to channel every one she'd ever gotten from or given to her own mother, and after just a moment, she felt strong arms clutching at her ribcage, rustling red hair brushing her cheek, and she held on.

# * # * # * #

Well after midnight, when she and Rick finally crawled under the covers and settled into the darkness, Rick's utter silence was unnerving.

He had hugged his mother, told her how sure he was that this would all turn out well, and made her cackle when he suggested it would make an excellent addition to her one-woman play.

But as he had looked to Kate over his mother's shoulder, she saw the utter fear that his chipper tone had been hiding. He was scared out of his wits, and she knew that like her, he had no idea what to do with that amount of fear when it couldn't be directed at an enemy.

He was on his side of the bed now, on his back, fingers laced together over the tip of his sternum, his profile just discernible in the moonlight slanting through the gaps in the blinds. Silent, observing, she could make out the dark curl of his lashes fluttering as he fought to close his eyes, keep them shut. When they popped open for the third time, he let out a sigh of frustration.

Though he hadn't even glanced away from the ceiling, he somehow must have known she was awake, could sense her eyes on him from where she lay tucked against her pillow, facing him.

"She's going to be fine. This is all going to be fine."

His voice was taut, low, and deadly calm—a sure sign to her that he felt anything but.

She had kept her distance, reading that he wanted space, emotionally and physically, to process. But now she did reach out a hand, let it creep underneath the covers to where the crook of his elbow was just peeking out.

Her fingertips found the soft, tender skin just below the curve of his biceps, soothed in circling silence until he turned his head to engage her.

The ragged inhale should have prepared her, but then nothing could really prepare her to see the man she loved fall completely apart.

"Kate, she's my mom."

Everything cracked apart on that last syllable.

His eyes squeezed shut but couldn't stop the tears from overflowing.

Before he could move to her, she slid to him, had him held tight, encircled with arms and legs and curving back and neck. Her lips found the shell of his ear, hummed quietly into it.

"I know, I know. And she's strong, and she's healthy, and no matter what happens on Friday, you're going to have her around for a long time."

Though she could feel the grief pulsing with every silent, shaking sob, somehow a warmth washed over her. He was letting her help. He was letting her catch him, for once, when he fell.

Long after he had stilled and slipped into sleep in her arms, Kate lay awake, just letting his ribs expand under her fingers, his breath tickle her cheek.

She had feared so much of loving, of intimacy, for the very reason that she didn't think she was strong enough to handle more grief.

But she understood now.

It was only in love that she could find that strength.


	6. Chapter 6

**Jump 6**

"Darling, what's Richard's cell phone number? I know I have it in my phone..."

Martha had been futilely digging in her purse for at least two minutes, and frustration was giving way to mild panic.

"212 555 4747."

She sighed and dropped her bag back at her feet, turning to Kate with suspiciously moist eyes before resuming her slog through the paperwork.

"Thank you."

The older woman was shaky, but up until then she had been hiding it well.

Kate had found her up and dressed well before their decided time of departure that morning. She had hurried to catch up, quickly eating a yogurt and slugging back caffeine before grabbing her keys and escorting the patient to her car.

As they buckled in, Martha cleared her throat.

"I want to thank you again, Kate. I don't know if I could have done this by myself today. I know we haven't been… the closest of friends, but I want you to know how much this means to me."

Kate's voice had caught tight and silent in her throat, and she had only managed a smile in return. She couldn't really explain the deep need she had acted on to do this, to be here with Rick's mother. All she could do was follow the instinct, let it lead her.

They had had no trouble parking, finding the right office—had been early in fact.

It was a good thing, judging by the number of forms on the clipboard the woman behind the desk had smilingly handed to Martha.

Kate had made it through the week on her usual mix of caffeine and adrenaline, closing what had become known as the Freddy Krueger case on the afternoon before, just in time to finish paperwork. Well, technically she had stayed until almost one in the morning to get it done, but what was important was that it was done, and now she was here.

It had helped that in the end, despite the slash marks (painted on for a Halloween prank at the fraternity) and the "werewolf fur" found on the victim's clothes on the autopsy (from a frat brother's Chewbacca costume, also essential to said frat prank), the college student's death had been accidental. She had seen a brief glimpse of her partner when Lanie had produced the clump of fur, noting that it had been nearly a full moon that Monday. But the mischievous glint in his eye was short-lived, and Castle had sunk back into the worried funk that had clouded his features all week.

It took a day of canvassing homeless people in the park to find the one who would eventually tell the true tale. She knew Castle was hurting when he didn't even seem disappointed that his werewolf theory had been disproven. The kid had fallen from the back of a park bench, where he had apparently climbed to look over the bushes for his similarly-inebriated buddies. The only fault found was in the drunken friends for not looking for the victim when they got separated.

Martha broke her from her momentary musings by standing to hand in the completed forms.

Kate curved her lips into a timid smile as the woman returned to her seat.

Martha just looked afraid. A little pale, eyes a bit too wide, lines and shadows betraying her usual claim on youth.

When she sat, Kate couldn't help reaching out a hand, giving her knee a little squeeze. Martha covered Kate's warm hand with her own icy one.

The contact lasted only a second, maybe two, but she knew it was enough.

A woman in hot pink scrubs with matching hot pink clogs and dangly, sparkly pink earrings entered from behind one of the white doors leading back into exam rooms and beamed at them. Kate saw a feather sticking out of the woman's scrub pocket, and on closer examination recognized a hot pink feathered flamingo pen peeking out.

"Miss Rogers? I'm LeAnn. Why don't you come on back with me."

Kate stood when Martha did, eyes questioning.

The hand on her elbow felt steady, as though maybe she had regained a bit of composure.

"You should stay here. I'll be back soon."

She even managed a wan smile.

"She will be, and I'm gonna take good care of her. Now, Miss Rogers, you'll have to excuse my saying so, but I have loved every show I have ever seen of yours."

"Well, how lovely of you to say! And please, call me Martha."

Somehow, Kate thought the two women would get along just fine without her.

# * # * # * #

Nearly two hours later, Kate almost jumped out of her chair when the door finally opened again, to reveal Martha and LeAnn, now both smiling and engrossed in conversation.

"So the dressing should stay on until you shower tomorrow morning, and then if you want to cover it with a bandaid, you can. Otherwise, just leave it open. Tylenol will probably be enough to take care of any discomfort, but you should fill this on your way home in case you need one when you lie down to sleep tonight—it might be more sore by then."

Martha took the offered square of blue paper, along with the sheet of wound care instructions the nurse had been gesturing toward.

"Thank you so much for everything."

Martha reached in and gave the petite, pink-clad RN a one-armed hug, which LeAnn returned in kind, careful to avoid one side. It sounded as though they were finished, but Kate had spent the better part of the past two hours researching breast cancer, testing, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation—the whole thing—and she couldn't imagine a biopsy could be over so quickly.

"So you're all done? Did you have a biopsy?"

Her gaze flicked back and forth between the two women.

"Oh, dear, they don't mess around here. Biopsy took half an hour. Piece of cake."

The Martha lilt was back. And she had just given LeAnn a high-five.

"She was a champ. Best patient I've had all week."

The flamingo-toned nurse grinned at Kate before turning back to her patient.

"Now Dr. Leigh will call you with the pathology results on Monday, but like she said in the procedure room, the odds of this being something dangerous are extremely low. I know what I'm about to say is probably pointless, but please try to keep your mind off of it this weekend."

Kate smiled at the sassy young woman whose personal flair fit right in with Martha's. Kate had spent her free moments during the week brainstorming with Rick about just what they could do to help her mother get through the weekend of waiting.

"I think we have some things planned to help with that."

Kate stepped up to the pair and Martha reached for her hand, squeezed lightly, and didn't let go. Though she wasn't back to her old self, a weight had lifted from actress' shoulders while she had been away. Kate held her eyes for a moment, feeling buoyed herself.

LeAnn piped back up, pulling a disc from the pocket of her scrubs and holding it out to Martha.

"I almost forgot to give you the digital images from your scan. Hang on to these in case you need them next week, or even next year when you get your mammogram. We have them, of course, but we always like to make sure our patients get their own copy, too."

Martha slipped the DVD into her purse alongside the paperwork and prescription. She still hadn't let go of Kate's hand.

"Now Martha, I knew you had that famous mystery writer son, but I never knew you had a daughter until today."

Kate looked down at their joined hands and a flash of memory at once bright and heart-wrenching overtook her. When her gaze rose again to the owner of that hand, she met soft, kind, but very blue, eyes.

A blush overtook her neck, started to creep into her cheeks, but as she opened her mouth to correct the nurse's mistake, Martha was answering instead.

"You know, LeAnn, neither did I."

# * # * # * #

Late that night, after a show and an after-theatre supper at Sardi's with Martha, she was half-way into her pajamas when it washed over her.

Standing in their bathroom, button-down and bra tossed into the dirty clothes hamper, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The reading and the researching she had done whispered to her, quietly tickled her subconscious mind.

They had always been there, for better or worse, as small or inadequate as she might have found them at times, they were a part of her.

She wasn't vain. She had no illusions that her slightly asymmetric 32Bs would ever inhabit a Playboy centerfold, nor would she want them to. And she knew with the scars no one would find her flawless, exquisite, perfect ever again. But they were a visible, tangible reminder of her often-elusive femininity. And she loved them.

She held up her hands, pressed her palms over her chest, flattened her breasts, looked hard.

If they weren't there…

"I would still think you were the most beautiful woman in the world."

Her eyes snapped to his in the mirror, where he stood in his pajamas at the bathroom door, watching her reflection.

She dropped her hands clumsily, didn't know where to put them with his eyes on her. They hadn't left the reflection of her face.

"I didn't fall in love with them; I fell in love with you."

He stepped up behind her, kept just a breath of distance between their bodies. She could feel the heat from his chest on her shoulder blades, but he wouldn't touch her now, somehow he knew she needed the space.

"Don't get me wrong. I love your breasts. I love how they look, and how they feel, and the noises you make when my hands and my mouth are on them. I love that I even get to touch them."

She felt his warm breath on her shoulder just before he placed a soft kiss against her skin there. But his hands stayed at his sides, and he backed away again, just out of her space.

"But as far as I'm concerned, this gorgeous package is just a bonus."

Narrowing his eyes, he took a few even, measured breaths. She knew there was more, and though her psyche had shifted, though she now wanted contact, wanted to feel him against her naked skin, she waited.

Finally, he stepped into her, pressed a warm palm to her sternum, over her scar. The heat spread from that point on her chest, firing nerves from her scalp to her fingertips hanging limp at her sides, to the sensitive skin skirted by the drawstring of her pajama pants, all the way down to her toes. Nothing about the touch was sexual, but it awakened parts of her that were lying dormant, afraid of all that she had been contemplating after her ordeal with Martha.

"I love this."

He pressed hard against her ribcage, pulled her back against him. She drew in a breath, fighting the weight squeezing her chest.

"The heart that's beating underneath."

He nuzzled against her ear, spoke with such quiet openness, such clarity into it.

"I love the woman who, though I can count on one hand the number of personal days she's taken in the five years I've known her, took one today to be with my mother when she needed someone."

His other hand came around her waist, palm circling over her navel. Everything lit up with that subtle, slow caress.

"And no matter what—"

He kissed the angle of her jaw. She sank back against him.

"—you will always be perfect—"

The tip of his tongue flicked over her pulse point. Her lids closed under the onslaught.

"—and beautiful—"

His hands found her edges and turned her in his arms. She went along, spiraled into him.

"—and I will love you forever."

His forehead tipped into hers, and she was caught by his eyes.

Even if his arms hadn't been wrapped around, holding her tight against him, she wouldn't have been able to pull away with those magnetic eyes on her.

And even as she succumbed to his lips, melted into his kiss, she believed him.

# * # * # * #

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie **

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**


	7. Chapter 7

**Jump 7**

**Please see the M-rated chapter (6.5) of Jump Journal posted last week to fit in right before this one.**

The dark cloud loomed in the distance all weekend, but when the day finally came, the sun was shining.

The three of them had managed four Broadway shows in two and a half days, ranging from Gershwin to Judy Garland. They ate out, they walked in the park. Kate had not been simultaneously off but yet so exhaustingly busy for a weekend since she had met Castle and his family.

And at no point did any of them mention Monday.

Rick stayed home that morning, unsure of his mother's plans, but hoping to be there when she got the call from her doctor. Kate had gone to work expecting to suffer for her missed day on Friday, but the boys hadn't even had a case.

Ryan and Esposito knew something was up, but she hadn't told them any details of where she had been on Friday. She had left it at needing a personal day, and without Castle there to pull it out of her, the boys were uneasily allowing her privacy.

Now, it was almost five. All her pens were aligned. She had rearranged her post-it pads. She had even cleaned her keyboard, and still there was nothing.

She had expected to hear from Rick, and she was getting paranoid.

If the news had been bad, maybe Martha had kept it to herself.

When her phone buzzed with a text, she nearly jumped out of her chair.

"Still no word. Mother is home from her class. We're just here waiting."

Something pulled at her—an instinct to circle the wagons, to present a united front.

"Do you guys mind if I take off early?"

Ryan's eyes took on an inquisitive squint, but he didn't act on it when he opened his mouth for a snarky retort.

"Beckett, you're probably the only one here who would consider five o'clock 'early.'"

She lifted an eyebrow in disdain.

"Well, then, fine. I'm leaving _on time_."

She stood and slid on her jacket, passed their desks with what she hoped was a neutral expression.

"Have a good night, boss."

Esposito knew better than to pry, but his tone conveyed concern. She ignored it for now, hoping there would be no reason for it in the end, but also realizing that if this were something bad, eventually the boys would hear the full story.

# * # * # * #

When Kate walked into the loft twenty minutes later, Martha was standing in the kitchen, one hand braced on the counter, the other holding her cell phone to her ear.

Her expression was cryptic. Concentration, maybe. Certainly not relief, but also not anguish.

Rick was frozen in mid-stir at the stove behind his mother, but he nodded once in Kate's direction.

This was it.

"I see. Yes, tomorrow morning would be fine."

So it couldn't be just an "all clear."

Kate's eyes skirted back to Rick, saw the panic rising behind the blue.

She stopped on the other side of the island.

"No, no. I understand. I appreciate your call, Dr. Leigh. I'll see you then."

Martha clicked off the call, put the phone down, kept her eyes closed for a beat before she spoke.

"So it isn't bad news, really."

Rick turned off the burner and set down the spoon, stepped up beside her to finish the thought.

"But not good news, either."

"Not exactly."

She looked up at him then, lips pressed into a tight smile.

"They found cancer in the biopsy."

Kate saw him fight hard not to flinch. No one had even said that word yet. It sank like a stone in her gut, and this wasn't even her own mother.

It crossed her mind that having Martha was as close as she would ever come to—no, she didn't need to be thinking that way right now.

"But Dr. Leigh says the pathologist believes it's contained—hasn't spread, won't spread. She wants to talk to me tomorrow to decide what to do."

Castle found his voice, as quiet and serious as Kate had ever heard it.

"I'm going with you, Mother. Alexis will want to come, too."

Martha rounded on him with a flash of something like anger. It was reassuring to see the spark after their careful weekend of premeditated levity. Her hand shot up, fingers flared as if to physically stop him.

"Now hold your horses. We are not getting her into this yet. Not until we know more. She doesn't need to worry about this."

Rick found Kate's eyes.

"What do you think, Kate? Does Alexis deserve to know now?"

She was completely floored. Her thoughts lurched to a stop, lips wouldn't move.

He was asking her advice.

He was asking, and the question had no direct connection to her.

And just like that, she understood exactly where all her intrusive, possessive instincts had come from over the past week.

She had been taking care of her family.

She might be marrying Castle next summer, but she was already in so deep with all of them that the vows and the dress and the legalities seemed trite, nearly an afterthought.

She looked at Martha and then back at her fiancé, took a breath, tried not to use her Beckett voice. This wasn't her team at work; she wasn't in charge. But she did get a vote, and that meant more to her than she would ever have imagined.

"We should tell her tomorrow night. After we know more—we can explain it better and tell her the options and she can help decide… whatever needs to be decided… if you want, Martha. But if we tell her now, she'll come over here, and it's just going to take her mind off her molecular biology exam tomorrow. Let her have one more normal night, Rick."

She left off the rest of that thought, the part that involved Alexis never being the same after this. Yes, it was her _grand_mother, and yes, right now it sounded as though the diagnosis was not as dire as it might have been, but there was no way to know for sure until they had more information.

His eyes were stern, clear-blue. She tried to interpret the firm line of his mouth as he considered her words, but all her Rick tells were failing her. Martha, on the other hand, had blinked hard, nodded, let her lips approach a smile.

Ultimately, Alexis was Rick's daughter. He hadn't shared decision-making with anyone, not even the girl's mother, for most of her life. She knew something hung on his response now, though she couldn't exactly put it into words. This was important. It was one thing to ask her. It was another to listen, even though she disagreed with him.

"Fine. I'll see if she can come have dinner. But I'm going with you, Mother. No arguments."

Everything melted inside her. She tugged her lower lip between her teeth and bit down sharply to keep it from overflowing. She couldn't call it happiness; there was nothing happy about tonight. But maybe relief. Relief, and an overwhelming sense of belonging, of having a place for the soft and tender and fallible parts of her that were only Kate.

"Not a one. I want you there."

Guilt rolled on top of the rest of her internal emotional uproar. She remembered this part of being in a family—letting them down. But she hadn't given anyone any notice, and they were sure to get a case by morning, and if Rick was going, then maybe she shouldn't intrude anyway.

"Martha, I don't know if I can…"

"Darling I wouldn't dream of asking you to miss another day of work for this little appointment. I'll have Richard with me. We'll muddle through somehow, though of course I would want you there."

And this, too, was familiar. The acceptance. The reassurance. Family could take the edge off this darkness.

Martha leaned in, gathered both of them up in a tight embrace.

Kate hoped the older woman was drawing strength from them.

Martha's alto blossomed between them, low and warm and snappy with humor.

"There aren't many things I would change about my life if I had it to do over again. But one would be to make a habit of telling you both how much I love you, at least often enough that it doesn't signal kidnapping or near-death experiences."

Castle let out a laugh as she released them, but Kate could only manage a watery smile.

Rick caught her eye, filled the silence for both.

"We love you, too, Mother. No near-miss required."

# * # * # * #

**Short. But I have the next few all ready, so expect another one, maybe even tomorrow. **

**Find me on twitter ( kate_Christie_) or Tumblr (KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com)**

**Also, I archive at Extraordinary Lines, the exclusively Castle archive site (extraordinarylines dot com)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Jump 8**

Kate had just capped the dry erase marker when her phone buzzed from the pocket of her jeans.

When she tugged it out, she was confused to see Rick's ID on the screen. His mother's appointment wasn't due to start until, well, she guessed it should be about to start now, so there couldn't be news.

She excused herself from the boys, hard at work scouring financials and phone records on the victim they had been called on just before dawn. She answered as she ducked into the break room.

"Hey. What's going on?"

"Nothing. We're just sitting in Dr. Leigh's office waiting for her to come in. I just… I had an idea. Do you have a few minutes? Or are you in the middle of an interview?"

He was nervous. She knew it by the terseness in his voice.

"No, I've got a little time. We're waiting for family to come in. What's up?"

She heard a beep in her ear and pulled her phone away to see the Face Time alert blinking.

Huh. She smiled to herself before clicking "accept."

Holding her phone up in front of her and pulling the door closed, she waited for his face to appear.

"We thought maybe this way you could be here, too."

Something warm spilled in her chest, overflowed again.

"Is it okay… I mean did you check with your doctor to make sure she doesn't mind?"

She heard Martha in the background before a dizzying camera spin revealed her slightly drawn but smiling face.

"Of course. Richard thought of it when we got here, and her nurse said patients do it all the time. But dear, if you need to go, don't even hesitate. I understand—you have a new case, I hear. The first few hours must be very important."

"I do, and they are, but so is this. I'll stay on as long as I can."

She needed to sit down; all of Rick's camera work was going to make her nauseated if she stayed standing.

"So I was telling Mother—"

And then they were interrupted by the click of a door opening. A bright, smooth voice filled the room, but somehow didn't overpower.

"I'm so sorry to have made you wait. Hello Martha. I would say it's good to see you again, but I had hoped our first meeting at your biopsy would be our last. How are you?"

More spinning. Geez Castle. She sank into the couch as a brunette in a crisp white coat with a stethoscope around her neck shook Martha's hand and reached over to Rick.

"About as well as can be expected, I think. Dr. Leigh, I would like to introduce you to my son, Richard Castle, and my daughter-in-law, Kate Beckett."

Whoa. Um. Yeah. Fast-forwarding a bit. She tried not to let any of the shock roiling with fear in her gut show on her face.

The doctor, of course, seemed unfazed, shook Rick's hand, flashed a smile at her over the iPhone.

What was the proper etiquette for meeting a doctor on Face Time? A wave would have to do.

Dr. Leigh returned it as she sat, leaning forward toward Martha to begin.

"I know I was brief on the phone last night. I'm sorry for that. I just wanted to have you face to face to discuss this, and I always want you to have the people you care about here to hear everything with you and be able to ask questions."

Maybe it was her detective instinct, but she liked this woman already.

Castle kept the phone's camera focused on the doctor, angled from near his shoulder.

Kate grabbed a notepad and pen from the nearby end table and started taking notes. She blocked in at the top of the page: "Dr. Leigh, 11/6/2012."

"So the pathologist saw what is called ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS. That means there are cancer cells present, but they are all contained inside one of the ducts in your breast. It hasn't spread, based on what we have seen so far. And with this kind of cancer, it is very unlikely that it will ever spread."

Kate immediately cued in to the DCIS acronym. It was one of many she had come upon in her research, and she had hoped the night before that this was Martha had been describing.

"Now don't take this the wrong way, I would never wish a breast cancer diagnosis on anyone, but if I had to pick a kind to have, this is the one I would pick."

The doctor wasn't smiling, wasn't trying to make light of anything, but compassion just shone through her big brown eyes. Kate knew this woman was in the fight with them, and that she meant to win every bit as much as Martha did.

"You have lots of options. The best news is that the vast majority of women simply have the mass removed and then follow up with either radiation or Tamoxifen or a combination of the two."

Kate added the treatment options under her first bullet point, "DCIS."

"So no chemotherapy?"

Dr. Leigh turned to Castle at his interruption.

"No. Not in the traditional sense, though some would call Tamoxifen a sort of chemotherapy. The platinum-based agents or monoclonal antibodies are not needed to treat this kind of cancer."

Martha had been uncharacteristically quiet, and Kate thought she might know why.

"Dr. Leigh, I just want to clarify something. When you say 'have the mass removed,' you mean a lumpectomy, not a mastectomy, correct?"

Kate remembered from her reading that it wasn't uncommon to remove only the tumor even in more serious breast cancers, but Kate wasn't sure Martha had done as much studying up as she had.

The doctor's apologetic eyes immediately focused on Kate's image on the phone.

"Oh, yes, I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. The studies have all shown that removing the mass alone leads to just as good survival as removing the entire breast. It's called Breast Conserving Surgery, or BCS. There is a slight chance of recurrence of the tumor, but in that case, it's almost always the same DCIS rather than a more serious type. And radiation therapy to the breast after surgery does an excellent job of preventing recurrence."

It was tough to judge Martha's reaction, since Kate was limited in her field of view by the angle of the phone, pointed directly at Dr. Leigh. But she heard Rick let out a breath. The doctor turned back to her patient and continued.

"Something else good that we learned from the biopsy is that your tumor is estrogen receptor positive. That means we have the option to use the drug Tamoxifen to kill any cancer cells that might after surgery."

Kate quickly jotted down "ER+."

Kate was startled by a soft tap on the window of the break room, but she wasn't surprised to see Esposito pointing toward a woman and teenage boy stepping off the elevator.

Dr. Leigh was discussing side effects and percentages when she cued back into the discussion. She hated to interrupt, but she didn't want to disappear without an explanation. At the doctor's next pause, she interjected.

"Excuse me—I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I'm going to have to step away."

Dr. Leigh's eyes slanted to her, and rather than annoyance, Kate recognized gratitude.

"Thank you so much for joining in. I'm glad to have met you, Ms. Beckett, and if you have questions later, don't hesitate to e-mail me or call. I'll make sure they have all my contact information when they leave."

Wow. Between Dr. Burke and her own gynecologist and the surgical team from last summer, she had an admittedly limited exposure to doctors. But this woman, with such a positive way about her despite working in a field that must be dark and sad at times, Kate was floored. Leigh had even remembered her name after one mention, despite the fact it wasn't Martha or Rick's last name.

She liked her. She liked her a lot. Enough that she truly missed being able to shake her hand at that moment.

"Thank you, Dr. Leigh. I really appreciate your letting me be part of this."

Castle turned the phone around, let her see Martha, who had a legitimate smile on her face.

"Kate, darling, go fight crime. I'm sure Dr. Leigh has all sorts of information that I can bring home for you to help me look through tonight."

"I'm sorry I have to go."

Her view turned again, this time to Castle.

His look nearly took her breath away.

It was the smile. The one she saw directed at Alexis, mostly. The crinkle at the corner of his eyes. The little upturn at the corners of his mouth. He was proud of her. He was proud that she had taken the time to do this for him, for his mother. She could tell he hadn't been sure she would.

And all of that sank deep—took up residence somewhere to be called upon later.

"I love you."

The blush swept over her cheeks, and she was suddenly glad he was the only one who could see her.

He was saying it with people in the room—a stranger even. He was saying it aloud, despite the fact that it was pouring out his eyes without a single word. How could she not say it back to him?

"Love you, too. See you tonight."

She clicked off and held a hand up over her eyes, tried to center herself. But then she realized she wasn't actually off balance. If anything, she was steadier than she had been in days. When she stood and stepped out to face the wife and son of their latest victim, she felt lighter.

Nothing would ever make this part easy, but meeting people like Dr. Leigh—people who put their patients first, got involved, cared—it boosted her flagging strength to keep going for the hardest parts of her own job. It gave her the courage to know that it did matter, how much she invested. It did matter that she fought so hard for these families. And it made her so glad to know that there were still other people in this world who would fight just as hard for hers.

# * # * # * #

**Again, short, but trying for faster updates. Thanks to all for reviews, favorites, and follows. They keep me going. **

**Find me on twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Or tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**

**Or Extraordinary Lines: ExtraordinaryLines dot com**


	9. Chapter 9

**Jump 9**

Alexis Castle was a smart woman. She was smart, and she knew something was up. Kate could see it in her eyes as she sat at the kitchen island, watching her dad put finishing touches on their salad.

Martha had been her usual, bubbly self since her granddaughter had walked in. She had asked about school, about her crazy roommates, about any prospective romantic interests. All very normal, but Kate could see the warning bells going off behind Alexis' eyes.

Kate and Rick were leaving it to Martha to decide when and how to do the telling. But thankfully, they didn't have to wait long.

She sat on a stool beside her granddaughter and took her hand, then gave her the whole story.

Watching the shock and the fear play over Alexis' features was difficult for Kate, so she could imagine how hard it was for the father and grandmother. The first words from the youngest Castle weren't a surprise. It would have been exactly what Kate would have asked.

"Why are you only telling me this now?"

She started out looking at Martha, but her eyes flicked around to her dad and Kate in rapid, self-conscious succession.

Thankfully, Martha took up the challenge.

"I am the one who didn't want to tell you last week. I wanted to know more, because I knew exactly what you would do, my brilliant girl. You would have spent your whole weekend researching every kind of breast cancer and figuring out every possible outcome, and you would have made yourself sick over all the worst ones."

Well, Kate thought, she'd done enough research and worrying for both of them.

Martha persisted.

"But now you can at least have the right diagnosis to focus on. And believe me; I want your help—very much. I need to decide what to do in the next day or two. I talked everything over with my doctors, but they have left it to me, to us, to decide."

Martha glanced at each of them with her last sentence.

Alexis still looked uncomfortable.

"Was Dad at least with you?"

"Your father and Kate were both with me."

Mentally, Kate winced. Knowing the young woman already felt left out, Kate's inclusion could only make that worse.

But Alexis zeroed in on her—held her eyes.

"I'm glad." Directing her question only to Kate, she asked, "What did they say about her treatment options?"

It was like an anvil lifted from her chest. Alexis not only wasn't upset that kate had been allowed in on this family matter, but she actually seemed relieved.

It was… a gift. And she had to blink, and press her tongue between her teeth to keep from letting it all show. She cleared her throat and saw Rick looking at her over his daughter's shoulder with the faintest little smile. Of course he knew.

"Hang on a sec. Let me get my notes."

Kate went for her jacket, but as she passed Alexis, she saw the knowing nod. They were more alike in some ways than Kate had ever realized.

# * # * # * #

After all the details had been hashed out, decisions made, and the surgery scheduled, Kate had gotten Martha's permission to let a few select people know.

The boys and Lanie had been first on her list, mostly because Kate would be taking another day off on that Friday for the surgery, and they were already suspicious about her one missed day and on-time departures from work.

Esposito and Ryan were appropriately concerned, but their reaction was tinged with something else—disappointment, maybe. It wasn't until she spoke with Lanie that she found out why.

"They thought you were pregnant, honey."

Kate's stomach dropped.

"What? Really? But I didn't… I wasn't throwing up or anything."

"You missed a day, and then you started going home early. There's been a pool ever since you and Castle started… getting horizontal on a regular basis. And when you showed us that bling, suddenly all the money doubled."

She had been through this once with Castle, way back at the beginning. Thankfully she had never had reason to panic since then, but she supposed it wasn't an unreasonable conclusion on her team's part. But what complete snoops! Though she already knew this, the lows they sank to somehow continued to astound her.

"God, is the whole precinct in on it?"

"Pretty much—so is the ME's office. Perlmutter has a pretty penny invested in a couple months this spring, I think."

She rolled her eyes at that. Enough speculation about her future fertility.

"Back on the topic of why I am actually taking time off, if Martha has questions, would you mind if she gave you a call?"

"Oh, of course I wouldn't mind. I'd be glad to. I am a pathologist, after all, even if I only use it for dead people at work these days. I have friends who do the cancer diagnosis thing, if you need a second read on her biopsy."

"I'll let her know you offered. She may not take you up on it, only because she really likes all the people at Sloan Kettering who she has met so far. I like her breast surgeon, too. She's so kind—has a great bedside manner."

Lanie raised a single eyebrow.

"There is a reason why pathologists get their MDs and then run screaming into a field with absolutely no patient contact."

"Oh, Lanie, I didn't mean you…"

"Don't worry. I didn't think you actually did, but forensic pathology is for two types of doctors—the weirdos—"

She looked pointedly in the direction of Perlmutter's office.

"—and the ones who would be more likely to sass their patients than counsel them. Instead, I get to sass the cops and the lawyers, and they tend to take it better."

She grinned cheekily at her best friend, to which Kate narrowed her eyes.

"But if Martha calls me, I promise to behave. And please tell her I'll be rooting for her on Friday."

# * # * # * #

Kate was sitting in their bedroom, convincing herself to call her father while no one else was around. He deserved to know; this was a family matter, and Martha had specifically told her to tell him.

On the third ring, an unexpected voice drawled over the line.

"Well, hello, Katie! To what do we owe the pleasure of your voice this fine evening?"

"Dora?"

It was a Wednesday night at nine o'clock—certainly not a time she would have expected a "friendly evening between friends" to still be going on…

"You are correct. I'm sorry; I should have started off with that. My momma always did yell at me for answering the telephone without a proper introduction. 'Impolite' was her word, which in our household warranted punishment just short of hanging. Your father and I were washing dishes, and my hands were dry."

She heard a bit of static, water running, maybe? Dora must have switched to speakerphone.

"She's got me elbow-deep in soap suds here, Kate. She cooked, and the food was fantastic, but this woman uses more pots and pans to make one meal than I could use in a week."

"Now hush, James Michael Beckett. The ends justify the means."

She pressed her lips tight together to keep the guffaw inside. This was priceless!

"Yeah, especially when I'm the one scrubbing those means."

It was all very cozy-sounding, really. And the gratuitous use of the middle name? Seriously. But she couldn't have the dark conversation she had called about on speakerphone, with all this laughter and lightness as a backdrop, even though Martha probably wouldn't mind if Dora knew.

"Why don't you give me a call back when you're done with dish duty, Dad?"

"Hey, if it's important, I can just stop now. I'd be glad to!"

Dora definitely had her Beckett no-nonsense tone of voice beat…

"Don't you think I'll take over if you quit now—we had a deal. Dinner for dishes! She who cooks does not scrub."

"OK, fine, I can see how it is. I'll call you back in a bit, Katie. Are you going to be up for a while?"

"Just because I'm engaged doesn't mean I've turned into an old married woman, Dad."

"Did I say anything about being old or married? You are neither, by the way."

"You were implying. Never mind. Call me back."

She grinned to herself. They were having fun.

"Love you."

"Love you too, Dad."

Twenty minutes later, she was curled up in bed, cheating on her author fiancé with Patterson's latest when her phone buzzed.

"So you two seem to be having fun. Is Dora still there?"

"She's taking some gooey, Texas, apple cobbler thing out of the oven that has been making my mouth water for an hour. Smells like one of those pies your mom used to make when she'd get on a backing kick. Do you remember that blackberry one with the oatmeal in the crust? I still have dreams about that pie."

She did remember. She hadn't thought of her mom's baking in a long time. And since when were she and her dad bringing up happy stories of her mom like it didn't wrench their guts just to think of her? Come to think of it, it hadn't actually wrenched anything just now. And her first reaction to the pie was…

"I made that pie with her. I've still got the recipe. I should make it for Thanksgiving."

Where the hell had that come from? Had she just decided not only to have family Thanksgiving, but also to invite her dad, and to bake her mother's pie? Maybe she was coming down with some sort of flu, one that made you irrationally happy before knocking you flat on your ass for a week.

"So is that why you called? Inviting us to Thanksgiving already?"

"No, actually, but I'll get back to you—I should probably see if Rick even wants to—"

"Oh, trust me, Katie, he wants to. That man has been trying to absorb you into his family for years."

He really hadn't made any effort to hide it, lately. Apparently, it was starting to slip under her radar.

"I guess he has. I don't even know if I'll be off that day."

And while things like being off on holidays had not only never mattered, but really had never occurred to her before, suddenly she felt a pang of loss at the thought she might have to work for this one.

"I'll bet you can find a way. It's important to him. He'd probably never admit just how much, but I can see it."

And the true surprise was it was important to her. Her dad kept going.

"I've seen him when he watches you, with his mom and his daughter and us all around. He gets this warm, sort of drifty look. Reminds me of the look I used to get when I would imagine making a family with your mom."

Rick walking past on his way to the bathroom startled her out of her daze. This was not what she had planned to talk about tonight. She wasn't prepared for all this reminiscing about her mother and hints about making families with Rick, and she didn't have an answer for any of it—

"Martha has to have surgery on Friday."

That was one way to do it.

"What? What's the matter?"

Now that she had so ungraciously gotten his attention, she might as well lay it all out.

"She has breast cancer, Dad. Just got diagnosed on Monday. But it's a very good kind to have, if that makes any sense—local and not spreading. So it will just be surgery and some radiation and one medicine—no chemotherapy. But she wanted you to know—and I'll probably go with them. To the hospital, I mean."

She didn't know why she felt a little funny about that, still.

"Of course. I don't know if she'll have to stay long, or if she would want me to, but I would certainly come see her."

His kindness didn't surprise her.

"It's scheduled as a day surgery—so she won't even stay the night unless there's a complication."

"Give her my best, and tell her I'll be thinking of her on Friday, then. And Kate, you know Dora's gone through this—her sister, years ago. Very different time, and probably a different kind, too, but you might think about getting Martha in touch with her."

Oh, no, wow. She didn't know.

"Thanks, Dad. I'll think about it. Martha wants to keep it quiet for right now, but she might really appreciate someone to talk to once this has all sunk in."

"I know you'll take good care of her."

Well, her father didn't seem fazed by how involved she was.

"Thanks Dad. I'll do my best. We're all in it together, I guess."

"Yeah, yeah we are."

She clicked off and glanced up to find Rick leaning on the doorjamb on his way out of the bathroom. He had this dreamy, drifty look in his eyes. Oh, her father was good.

**# * # * # * #**

**There will be a Jump Journal M-rated chapter next, might be tomorrow. Hope you like where this plot wrinkle is taking us. **

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

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	10. Chapter 10

**Jump 10**

She was freezing. Kate had on a turtleneck, and a jacket, and wool pants, but she had goose bumps everywhere. Why did they have to keep doctor's office waiting rooms so freezing? Well, ambulatory surgery center waiting rooms. Whatever.

Castle's knee was bouncing.

Everything else about him conveyed confident disinterest: his incessant touch-screen tapping, his slight slouch into the cushioned back of the waiting room chair. No glances at his watch; no checking the door. But the knee gave him away.

Alexis wasn't hiding anything. She'd nearly worn a groove in the tasteful, beige, Berber carpet between the water dispenser and the magazine rack. The furrow in her brow was verging on permanence. The teenager was going to regret this life of worry and self-imposed responsibility when she hit thirty and had her first wrinkle already.

Two hours was probably a "quick surgery" in the eyes of most surgeons, but when they had kissed Martha good luck, none of the family had really asked the medical staff for a time table. Local anesthesia, minimal recovery time, likely no need to stay overnight—all of that had seemed very reasonable when Dr. Leigh had explained it.

Nothing to worry about.

The doctor's easy manner and smiling confidence had made everything sound routine. More like a pedicure than cancer surgery.

So why was the deep gnawing dread still digging into Kate's stomach?

And the knee bouncing was driving her completely insane.

She laid a hand over the angle of her fiancé's kneecap, and all motion ceased. But she didn't break her gaze following Alexis' measured steps—twelve down, pivot to the right, twelve back, pivot to the left. A bit like a slow tennis match, but the back-and-forth was soothing.

And it kept her from wanting to pace herself.

She saw it in Alexis' sudden halt on step seven. By the time she looked up, there was Dr. Leigh, pushing open the door, smiling with that lovely, sure curve to her lips and those confident brown eyes.

# * # * # * #

Martha had been situated in her bedroom, pajamaed and propped and covered and fawned over to the gratification of even her actor's ego as soon as they had returned home. She had been remarkably spry, claiming she felt absolutely no pain, and it was hard for them to argue when she laughed and joked right along with them.

Alexis had been in charge of reading her post-operative instructions and timing her pain medication, and as a result, she had also memorized every side effect and interaction on the prescriptions. But the crease had smoothed out on the young woman's forehead.

It was all fairly simple—take it easy, leave the dressing on and no showering until the next day, no lifting, and take the prescribed pain medication as needed.

Martha had taken everything remarkably well, was the epitome of the perfect patient, even ate her dinner, which the family brought up on trays and ate with her in her room.

When the sun sank below the skyline, Kate noticed the subtle change in her eyes—a tightness that she remembered well from her own mirror over a year ago.

Martha took her meds and Kate shooed the others out, promising to check in again before bed and leaving her cell in easy reach.

As she was pulling the door closed, the older woman called her back into the room.

"Kate?" A pause, as she turned around and peeked back in through the door. And then hesitantly, "Would you… do you think tomorrow you could…"

Kate wasn't following, but whatever this request was, it was disconcerting for Martha. Then the red head gingerly laid her palm over the side of her breast, where her robe was bulging slightly over the bandage.

"I know Alexis is going to offer, but… I don't want…"

Oh, well of course. It was just a bandage, and it probably wouldn't be nearly as angry as her own wounds had been last summer. But there was no reason for Alexis to see her grandmother like that, no matter how much she wanted to help.

Kate smiled, tried to let only the understanding and not the sorrow leak into it.

"It's easier to put the idea away if you don't have to face the scars."

Martha pressed her lips together and shut her eyes briefly, nodded ever so slightly.

"Yes."

"I'll be up first thing in the morning and we'll get you in the shower."

She turned and placed her hand over the doorknob again, paused at Martha's voice, soft and clear.

"Kate, I want you to know how much it means that you've been here for this. For Rick. For Alexis. For me. You didn't have to be."

She didn't turn back around, for fear of giving away her filling eyes to the person she for whom she wanted most to be strong.

"Of course I did. You're my family."

# * # * # * #

She was curled against his chest, cheek pressed into the soft cotton of his t-shirt, listening to him breathe, waiting for him to start talking. He wasn't falling asleep. She could hear it in the shallowness of his inhalation, the slight variation in the length of his breath back out against the top of her head. He was doing a decent job of faking it, though. Just not good enough to fool her. When he inhaled and held, she knew the vibration through his chest wall was coming.

"She's going to be fine. I know she is."

His voice was quiet. Appropriate for the late hour, the dark room. But it was walking that tenuous edge between confidence and uncertainty. She rubbed warm circles against his sternum with her palm.

"Everything went great today. The pathology will come back Monday, she'll start her radiation right after Thanksgiving, and she'll be done by New Year's. DCIS—"

"Is the best diagnosis she could have had. I know. I read the thing you printed for me. And I went to the American Cancer Society site, too. I'm just not used to feeling so useless."

Ah, this made much more sense. She knew this was more than simple worry.

"So do something about it."

"I wanted to do the walk, but that was in September. And I know I could just donate, but I feel like that's not enough. I want to do something active. I want to contribute."

He was all tied up in knots. There was this thing he sometimes did when he was frustrated—grabbing a handful of her hair and squeezing it between his fingers. It never tugged or pulled as long as she was lying still—wasn't even a conscious thing, she didn't think. He was doing it now, taking up vast fingerfuls of curls and clenching them in his fist between her shoulder blades.

"You have to play to your strengths. The best thing you could do is to raise awareness. Use the fame. Use Paula. I'll bet she can set up something. A TV spot. An appearance at a fundraiser. Maybe you could even volunteer to help write patient's stories. You could get your poker buddies in on it, too."

He let her hair loose, threaded his fingers up close against her scalp instead, used just enough force to tip her head up to look at him.

His eyes were studying her—searching, she thought, but she knew not for what.

"How do you do that? How do you find me when I'm lost in the middle of that mess? When I can't find myself?"

"I'll always find you. It's what I do, Castle."

# * # * # * #

They stood before the mirror in Martha's bathroom, the patient with one hand balanced on the counter, robe untied to reveal her bare chest and bandage.

Kate washed her hands, warmed them under the water, tried very hard not to imagine herself underneath the tape and gauze.

As she gently began to find edges of tape, the words just spilled out of her mouth.

"I got a call from Paula this week. I guess Rick mentioned to her we had picked a date, and she wanted to know what venues I wanted her to look into for the wedding."

She focused on the squares of gauze, the slightly-rolling edges of the paper tape securing it to the skin. She had to have her eyes on her work, but she couldn't think of this as Martha. She couldn't hurt Martha. But she had to take this off, and it was right beside her surgical wound. It couldn't be pleasant, but it had to be done.

"I guess it's never too early to start planning." Martha winced as one edge of tape pulled, close to the incision.

She'd never had such respect for her father, changing all her bandages the summer before last. She'd never had such compassion for Josh's uncanny knack for depersonalization. He wasn't changing dressings; he was the one inflicting the wounds in the first place. How could he bring himself to cut through a person's skin, through muscle? He'd cut through hers.

She blinked herself out of her spiral down, tried to keep her tone light, distracting. This was not about her.

"I don't know how this all went… before. But I have no clue what I'm doing planning a wedding. I mean, I know Paula can help, and we can hire a coordinator to do everything. It would all be easy that way."

She lingered over those last words. Martha picked up on it, of course.

"But…"

"But when I was about six or seven, my mom took me to this friend's wedding. We were all invited, but my dad was out of town, so she asked me to be her date."

She gently tugged off the last corner of tape with only a blink from her patient. She rolled the bandage in on itself before tossing it in the trash. The incision was small, and there were no stitches visible—just a slightly swollen pink line. It hadn't even really bled onto the bandage. These surgeons were definitely better at aesthetics than her ex. She continued her story as she helped Martha out of her robe and into the shower.

"I'd never been to a wedding before, never got asked to be a flower girl or anything, and my mom spent hours making it into this big adventure. Took me all through her wedding photos, told me about the dress, and the church, and the cake and the bouquet toss at the end. I was kind of a tomboy."

Martha pulled back the curtain to raise an eyebrow in a smirk remarkably like her son's.

"Really? Never would have guessed."

Kate sat on the counter. She assumed she might have to help with hair washing, maybe, if Martha was sore lifting her arm.

"Yeah, well, that's why she thought she needed to make it exciting, since she knew I wouldn't fall into a giddy stupor over the ruffles and the bows and the poufs—this was the eighties after all. So she told me a lot about planning her wedding, how she and my grandma shopped for her dress and picked out all the music and the readings, and the flowers and the decorations. She made it all seem so real, but so magical at the same time."

"I've heard many a bride wax poetic about her wedding day."

"Well, when we finally got to the wedding, I was pretty excited. New dress and sparkly shoes and everything. And she looked gorgeous. But then, she always did. That day, though, she was glowing, and giggling with me. And when they said their vows, she actually had tears in her eyes. My mom was not a woman who cried over little things. I guess this was one of her last close friends to get married. She said it was happiness overflowing. I was just mesmerized."

"It sounds lovely."

"It was. It really was. It almost made me girly for about a week. And then I went back to climbing trees. But I think that wedding got stuck back in my psyche somewhere."

"Ha. Well, you don't seem to have any trouble combining your toughness with your feminine side now, dear."

She did love her heels. And her lingerie. Kate smiled to herself about what her mother might think of her now.

"Since my mom died, I really never thought I would get married."

"But then you met the right person."

"I did."

"And after a little convincing, 'never' turned into 'maybe'."

"He can be very persuasive when he wants to be."

Martha laughed from behind the curtain.

"Don't get me wrong, the princess fantasies stayed back in 1986. But I just… I want it to be special, and I want it to be about us. Not about publicity or about Paula or about selling books. And I don't want it planned by some stranger."

That was the part she was very sure of. It didn't sit right with her to think of someone else putting in the time and effort. It should be her. Her and her mom. But short of that… at least her.

The water shut off and the towel disappeared from over the curtain rod. Martha must not have wanted to wash her hair after all.

"Well, of course you don't want any of those things. And Kate, that's why this one is it. This one is the real thing. No red carpet or swans or diamond dust on the cake."

Kate nearly choked.

A hand appeared and grabbed the terrycloth robe from the hook where Kate had hung it beside the shower.

"Really? You mean they…? On second thought, maybe I don't want to know about the… others."

"You have nothing to worry about. I can hear you comparing yourself to them inside your head, so just stop it right now. There is no comparison. You are in an entirely different universe from anyone he's ever even dated, much less married."

"Thank you. I think."

"Oh yes, that's about the biggest compliment I can give when it comes to Barbie and Midge."

Kate chuckled.

"I always did prefer Tracy. She would have been from around the time you were playing with dolls, if you ever played with them."

"She had brown hair and green eyes. I got one for my birthday. It was the only Barbie I ever had. I'll admit I didn't play with her much. I was more of a Lego sort of kid."

"I loved my Barbie. We only had one when I was a little girl. I had always looked forward to having a little girl so we could dress them up. But then I had Rick, who was all robots and gizmos. I got my doll fix with Alexis though. She still has mine, too. I think she has all of them in a case somewhere, sealed up and perfect."

Martha slid back the curtain and stepped out of the tub in her robe, hair dripping at her shoulders.

"Oh, I was going to help you with your hair."

"Seems that I'm fairly good at washing my hair one-handed. But I'll take you up on some help with drying it."

Kate took the towel from her and stood, scrubbed it through the short red tresses.

In the mirror, she found her future mother-in-law's eyes. The words came out before she could think any harder about them.

"Would you be willing to help me?" She paused, watched a brief flash of confusion in the other woman's face. "I mean, I know it's a lot of trouble, and you've probably done all this before, and I know you have a lot going on right now in your own life, so please don't feel like you have to say yes—I won't get my feelings hurt."

She finally ran out of words.

"You're asking me to help you plan your wedding?"

Kate nodded her answer at Martha's reflection, not sure what that incredulous tone of voice meant.

She spread the towel over the bar on the wall, and Martha turned to face her, and an angelic smile overtook her features.

"My darling I would be honored."

She reached for Kate in a one-armed hug, squeezed her tight.

This woman could never replace Kate's mother. Kate knew parts of this wedding would make her sad, dredge up all those old hopes and wishes never to be fulfilled. But she needed to make room in her heart for new wishes. And she found herself including this crazy, outspoken thespian in some of them.

She pulled back, kissed Kate on the forehead.

"I promise not to take over. And you and your classic, elegant, understated taste are completely in charge."

Martha led the way out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, Kate following behind with the fresh bandage supplies. She turned back with a glint in her eye, pinned Kate with her most serious look.

"Am I allowed to buy magazines?"

Oh good grief. What had she done?


	11. Chapter 11

**Jump Chapter Eleven**

**Enlightenment Universe, in chronological order:**

**Enlightenment + Enlightenment Extra (containing M chapters that fit into Enlightenment)**

**Magnification (the whole story is M, but not all chapters are, and this one is still in progress)**

**Jump + Jump Journal (containing M chapter that fit into Jump, also still in progress)**

**# * # * # * #**

Apparently there was really only so much of the Castle-Rogers family Kate could take on any given holiday.

Fine. Rick was wearing an apron that clearly stated: "I'm a breast man." She could handle turkey humor.

And Alexis insisted on playing Christmas music all day long while they were cooking. Also relatively understandable on its own, though Kate generally had a strict no-Christmas-until-after-Thanksgiving rule. And it hadn't interfered with her concentration making her mother's blackberry pie.

But when Elvis started crooning "Blue Christmas" for the second time, and Martha came at her with the giant turkey hat—turkey wearing a chef's hat and apron and carrying a carving fork no less—she just sort of cracked. It was a very subdued psychotic break, she thought, at least as psychotic breaks go. Smiling really wide, she had redirected the hat on to Martha's bare head and excused herself to the master bath to… breathe. Yes. Breathe. Not bang her forehead repeatedly against the granite countertop.

With only an hour to go until the guests arrived, Kate had plenty of kitchen tasks to occupy her. She could totally get through without committing a felony.

Oh but if she had to hear Alvin and the Chipmunks one more time, she was going to rip the speakers out of the frakkin' wall.

She turned to Boba Fett with a glare.

"They wouldn't try to make you wear a stupid turkey hat."

Great, now she was talking to inanimate objects. She had to get this thing moved out of their bathroom. And why was this all bothering her so much, anyway?

"You know you don't have to wear that turkey hat. Mother was just being Mother: ridiculously festive to overcompensate for never actually making Thanksgiving dinner during my childhood."

Kate wheeled around to find her fiancé, sans silly apron, leaning against the doorjamb, a wrinkle between his brows.

Oh, she didn't want him to worry. This wasn't a big deal, just a little only child family holiday overload.

Crossing to him, she slid her hands around his waist, pressed herself against him.

"I know."

The wrinkle still hadn't smoothed.

"Everything okay?"

Not really. Sort of. Maybe. Absolutely no clue why it wouldn't be.

"Yeah. Fine. I just… it's a lot of tradition to walk in on."

Where the hell had that come from?

His eyes softened then, brow lifted.

"I guess it is."

Wrapping his arms around her, sliding one wide palm up her backbone, letting it rest between her shoulder blades, he took a long breath and continued.

"We do have our way of doing things. Since it's been just me and Alexis most of the time, we sort of have the routine down. It's easy to forget that other people probably have other traditions, other ways of doing things." He paused to press his lips to her forehead. "I didn't even ask you about how you wanted to do things today. I'm sorry."

Her heart melted hearing his apology, the one she hadn't even realized she needed until he figured it out for her.

"Don't apologize for letting me be a part of your family's traditions, Rick. I love that you and Alexis and Martha have them, and that you still do them together. I'm honored to be a part of it."

"Okay, I won't apologize for letting you in on the craziness that is the Castle-Rogers family at Thanksgiving. But you're not just becoming part of our family, you know."

His fingers brushed a lock of hair gently behind her ear as he tipped his head to catch her eyes.

"We're making a brand new family, together."

That was the thousand watt smile, the one that she couldn't resist answering.

"So from now on, for every crazy Castle thing we make you do, you have to share one Beckett family tradition with us."

Her parents and she had made dinner every year, but none of what they did really seemed like it qualified as a tradition.

"We didn't really have any traditions like you guys, though."

Letting go of his hold on her, he slid one hand into hers and tugged her back out through the bedroom.

"Sure you did. Just because they weren't loud, obnoxious, or dramatic, doesn't mean they weren't traditions. Who made dinner? What did you have?"

"We all cooked. Mom always got up early to start the turkey and dressing. Dad mashed the sweet potatoes. I usually had vegetable duty—squash or green beans or asparagus depending on the year."

Martha had taken over stirring the cranberries at the stove with Alexis watching like a hawk from her spot at the cutting board.

"Alexis would never let me make squash for Thanksgiving. Said it tasted like medicine."

"Dad, that was when I was five!"

Looking pointedly at the pile of beans she was snapping and dropping into the large pot, he raised an eyebrow and turned to Kate.

"And yet every year we still have green beans…"

The blushing huff of frustration from the redhead prompted a giggle from Kate, which spurred Alexis to ping a green bean off the back of her father's head. His jolt of shock followed by slantingly vengeful glare in his daughter's direction brought out a full belly laugh.

Soon Rick was hurling sprigs of parsley and chasing the girl around the island, and none of the ridiculous Castleness mattered anymore. She grabbed a handful of grapes from the fruit salad prep pile and lobbed one at each of them, beaning Rick on the forehead and catching Alexis on the nose.

Both of them stopped in their tracks, eyes going wide as they looked conspiratorially at one another, and then they turned on her and parsley and green beans rained down.

"Oh, Kate, darling. I should have warned you. Never, ever, take on both Castles in a food fight in their own kitchen. It never ends well, for you or for the dinner."

But Kate was no wilting flower. Ducking around the other side of the island and using Martha for cover, she managed to get to the sink and grab the spray nozzle. Brandishing it in the direction of her attackers, she called out in her best NYPD raid voice.

"Everybody freeze! Hand over the vegetables, and nobody gets wet."

Alexis actually put her hands up with a sheepish smile on her face. Turning to Rick, who also seemed to be acquiescing by raising his hands above his head, she was not expecting the entire handful of wet parsley to whack her in the face. She squeezed the lever and sprayed him just as a new volley of green beans tips and tails hit her in the back of the head. Rounding on Alexis, Kate sprayed her apron, but was taken by surprise when Rick grabbed her from behind and hauled her up in the air, allowing the teen to disarm her.

It took a stern glare and a rather dictatorial tone from Martha to catch their attention.

"Now children, behave yourselves! There is work to be done in this kitchen, and unless you want me finishing up your Thanksgiving dinner, put down the sprayer and clean up this mess you've made."

Staring blankly in her direction, Rick piped up incredulously.

"Mother, that almost sounded like you've actually scolded children before."

"I'm practicing for a new role as Rose in Gypsy. Pretty convincing, eh?"

# * # * # * #

Two hours later, with clothes changed and kitchen tidied just in time for their guests' arrival, only the final touches were left to complete their meal. Kate was carrying hot cider over to Dora and Martha, who had been talking quietly in front of the bookcases in the office. She stopped short just out of their line of sight as she caught a few words of their conversation.

"Are you nervous about Monday?"

"Oh, no. Everyone tells me the radiation will be the easiest part of this whole cancer business. In and out at each session, finished in a few weeks."

Though she knew she should announce herself or step away, Kate was frozen to the floor.

"Well, you sure are takin' it better than my sister, Betty. She was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs before her first session. She was convinced that her ladies were going to start glowing in the dark!"

Martha laughed aloud then, and it was more than just the tight chuckle she usually managed when discussing anything about her therapy.

"But seriously, Martha, Betty had one of the types that meant she had to have surgery and chemo and radiation, and she did say that the radiation was the easiest part-not a single side effect, other than the tingle she got from her doctor, that is. Used to say she was going in for her daily dose of her hot radiologist. Went with her to her last session just so I could meet Dr. McDreamy in the flesh, and she wasn't kidding-the boy was a big scoop of yummy with whipped cream and a cherry on top."

Thinking now was probably as good a time as any to announce herself, Kate cleared her throat and walked past the open bookcases.

"Ladies, I have some cider here for you."

The two of them were grinning conspiratorially, Dora's hand resting on Martha's forearm.

"Well, isn't that warm and toasty on this chilly day. Thank you, Katie darlin'."

Kate smiled. The warmth in this room had nothing to do with the cider.

# * # * # * #

As the six of them settled into their chairs, feast laid out before them, Dora spoke up from her corner of the table.

"Do you all mind if I say grace before we start? This was one of my family traditions back in Texas. Now grab hands with your neighbors."

Kate took Rick's hand, and her father's, held them both, light and warm in hers. It felt right to do this, even though none of them was particularly religious. Something about the gesture of gratitude and communion settled her heart, the connection among them at that moment not only symbolic but also physical.

"We give thanks today for this beautiful meal and all the brilliant hands and hearts that prepared it. We remember those who are not here, and those not so fortunate to have such a feast of friendship. We are thankful, too, for this chance to sit in the presence of these friends-and ever-growing family-that we have made together." Rick squeezed tight on her gathered fingers, making Kate smile and clench back. "May we all meet again next year around so bountiful a table, healthy, happy, and grateful to be so. And in the words of my Great-Grand-Daddy Spot, God rest his soul, who said the same gosh-darn blessing every single week at Sunday dinner: "Good bread, good meat, good God, let's eat!"

When their eyes rose, all smiling, Kate was not surprised to see a few blinking suspiciously, including her fiance. Traditions, it seemed, weren't so hard to start, after all.

# * # * # * #

Stomachs full and brains hazy from tryptophan, the permanent inhabitants of the loft were snuggled and draped over couch and chairs, dozing gently. Kate was roused from a half-dream involving being kicked-from the inside of her very pregnant belly. Shaking her head in confusion, half-shrouded in the depths of sleep, she remembered the last images of her dream. She was reaching for Rick's hand, laying it gently over the spot high on one side, seeing a smile light up his whole face like none she'd ever seen before.

Jerking fully awake, she slipped a down into the blankets, nearly convinced she would find a swollen mound bumping up against rounder, heavier breasts. When instead she found the same flat expanse of her stomach that she'd fallen asleep with, albeit slightly distended by that second helping of blackberry pie, being nudged by the warm tangle of Rick's feet under the throw, her heart clenched in... relief? That must explain the breathless stutter, the tumble and flutter of her stomach.

Trying to reassure herself further, she lifted the blanket, ducked her head underneath. No baby bump.

But god, she wanted to make him smile that way.

"Is everything alright, dear?"

Martha's stage whisper was slightly muffled by the blanket still stretched over Kate's head, but that made it no less effective in startling her from her daze. Why was Martha even awake? Kate could have sworn she was snoring the last time... Okay, time to get out from under the blanket and face the mother-in-law...

Static electricity sparked as the fleece ruffled her hair, and then Martha came into view, curled up in an armchair with a blanket covering most of her.

Still slightly off and not yet surfacing from her dream, Kate was slow to answer with sleep-roughened words.

"Fine, uh, yeah, everything is... Fine."

The pitch of her voice had turned the last word into a question.

"Bad dream?"

"No, it was a... It was a good dream, actually."

And just like that, she realized that it was.

The matriarch gave Kate a knowing smile, eyes darting to where Kate's hand still rested against her stomach, rubbing absently.

"Those are always the worst to wake up from, aren't they?"

Still a little unsteady, Kate smiled back, wary of just how well this family might really know her.

Martha unfolded herself from her chair and crossed to Alexis, rubbing the young woman's pajama-clad shoulder.

"Come on, kiddo. Time for bed."

Alexis rose and shuffled over place a kiss on her still-sleeping father's cheek.

"Night, Dad."

The magic of paternal instinct had him immediately awake, though his reflex to straighten his body resulted in another kick to Kate' side. Her grumble of protest was lost in the hugs and kisses and words of goodnight among them all, and she soon found herself snug in their bed, head resting against his chest, limbs curving over his body, side flush with his warm mass.

"Today was a good day."

By the abrupt rise of his chest under her ear, Kate could tell he must have already been drifting off when she spoke. His answer rumbled gently through his ribs to her ear.

"Yeah, it was. Maybe even-" a yawn broke through "-the best Thanksgiving ever."

Despite his proclivity for exaggeration, something in his voice told her the statement was genuine. This was how it always happened-he opened her up, made her want to share, to give back some tiny measure of all he gave her every day.

"I remembered something we used to do. Not really a tradition, just what we did."

His hand stroked warm over the small of her back, the broad expanse of his fingers nearly spanning the narrow of her waist.

"What was it?"

"The Macy's Parade."

"You used to go to the parade?" His hand found the edge of her t-shirt and slipped underneath to continue its earlier movement, soothing, distracting.

"No-we just watched it on TV. No matter what my mom was in the middle of, stuffing the turkey-anything, she would drop it all and run into the room when the Rockettes came on."

The memory made her smile. It usually involved her snapping green beans into a pot while sitting on the couch, keeping an eye out for the first sign of the long-legged troop of dancers to hit Herald Square.

"Did you ever go see them at Radio City?" The low tone was one he used whenever they mentioned her mother. It hit her then that talking about her mom had slowly gotten easier, less likely to make her shut down or run.

"Sure, when I was about eight or nine."

The memory was mostly of her mother walking her up by the stage before the performance, leaning almost over backward to follow the curving arc of the proscenium at Radio City. When the lights went down, and her mom took her hand in the dark, the dots of colorful costumes, all exactly alike, appeared as the curtain parted, shining under the lights. And there was the kick line-every girl perfectly in line with the next, toes peaking at eye level in disciplined, practiced precision. It had almost made her want to take tap dancing lessons. Almost.

Head now just slightly off the pillow, Rick spoke against the crown of her head, words hopeful and soft.

"Do you want to see them again?"

She could, Kate realized. She could go see the Rockettes and think of her mom, and not fall apart. Trying not to let her trepidation show, she smiled against his chest and took a deep breath.

"That might be fun, actually."

That set him to full-on ecstatic mode, propped up on elbows, disrupting her comfiest sleeping spot.

"You know they give a backstage tour-you get to meet the camels!"

Oh, what had she done?

"Camels spit, so I'm not sure that's a great idea."

Giving up on her immediate chance for slumber on top of her man-pillow, she rolled onto one elbow to face him. That little squint of his eyes and the purse of his mouth always preceded a differing opinion.

"I thought it was just llamas that spit?"

Oh good grief. That warranted a good, long eye roll before she answered.

"They both do. Trust me, I have met a camel."

"Where, exactly did you meet a camel, and why are we debating the spitting habits of Camelidae, again?"

"I have absolutely no idea, but this is not the time for the story of Kate and the camel." She pushed through his petulant little frown. "And please let's stop before I end up dreaming of llamas."

Flopping back on her actual pillow, she stretched, let her muscles bunch and relax. Rolling to face her, he propped his head on one hand and pinned her with his question.

"Why would you do that?"

This was her opportunity to bring it up, get it out there that she was having crazy pregnant dreams, discuss the implications, the reasons why. But at the last second, she chickened out, giving in to the little voice that kept telling her that some things weren't meant to be shared, especially when they involved a ridiculous dream that meant absolutely nothing, and probably only happened because of Dora's comment about families growing and then Rick kicking her on the sofa while she was sleeping, and what did any of that have to do with reality, anyway? It was just a dream. Rick's increasingly inquisitive look told her she had been silent a little too long,

"Oh, no reason. I've just had some strange dreams lately. Probably just the second helping of pie."

A wave of cowardice and remorse washed over her, and maybe he could see that, maybe he picked up on her tells, decided to let her off the hook for once, because his eyebrows slowly rose, and a wicked glint sparked his eyes to blue.

"Any of them involve me and sexy lingerie?"

With equal parts gratitude and guilt, she fell back on her old standby, smirked at his perfect set-up.

"I'm sure Dora would be happy to sell you some, but she might not have much in your size."

Matching her pose, he flopped back on his pillow in frustration.

"Ack! No! Not what I meant. Never mind!"

With a huff, he turned on his side to face the wall. Vowing to tell him sometime soon, she ran her fingers through his hair, relying on the motion to calm him.

"Go to sleep, Castle."

"Fine, fine. But now I'm going to dream about llamas doing high-kicks in lingerie."

Rolling to curve behind him, she snuck an arm around his ribcage, snarked quietly in his ear.

"Always gotta take it one step too far..."

Snuggling back against her, he turned and kissed the inner curve of her arm where it wrapped around. His warm breath set off goosebumps as he spoke quietly into her skin.

"Better than not far enough."

**A/N: This is obscenely overdue, not just because Thanksgiving happened almost a week ago, but because the last time I posted a chapter of this story was in AUGUST. Sorry, dear readers. I shall try to put out the next chapter before SPRING.**

**Thanks to all who have read this ever-elongating series of stories. Are you guys still with me?**

**This is un-betaed, so mistakes are all mine.**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


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